EP 93: Elk Hunting Tips/Tactics Q&A with the Epic Crew

maybe a pre-scout i think road systems water and cows where the cows and stuff but even that changes a little bit well in my mind i'm thinking draws more tags split unit new hunt anything to do with western big game welcome to the epic outdoors podcast powered by under armor hey everybody jason carter and the epic crew we got jeff john john peterson chris peterson here and anyway coming at you from southern utah kind of exciting right in the middle of our season been doing some crazy stuff um haven't posted a lot on social media because there's specific bucks that don't really want to be seen by the whole world yet or at least i don't want them to see so anyway but we've been having a good time adam's in the field right now he's working the sheep over pretty hard and he's pretty relentless so i'm sure we're going to have a bunch of sheep dying very

soon uh not to mention he did kill an awesome doll sheep there in alaska so we've had some good success already 170 inch ram such a such a giant very very very quite an accomplishment if you missed it go back and listen to that podcast we talked about it it was awesome yeah it was it was awesome and that that story is great of course jeff's been up to alaska and had some good times and i've tried to stay in the lower 48 ever since he got my butt kicked on brown bears review this spring so anyway and nevertheless i've tried to stay down here too yeah butt kicking continues so anyway um before we get started we do want to thank under armor and uh we appreciate their sponsorship everything they're involved in pretty much everything we we do and we appreciate them they make phenomenal gear a lot of you guys have have seen a lot of their uh people supporting them

and hashtagging them and whatnot using their gear it's a it's an incredible western pattern uh for deer and elk especially uh as well as antelope and uh guys are finding a lot of success with it and enjoying it and the new gear is pretty amazing it's uh not that the old gear was terrible but the new gear is awesome and so anyway maybe jeff you can like this coming out with some new lines you're going to see them in retailers already several of the new the new items they have online if you want to jump on and just research some of the stuff before you get there they're bringing stuff out i think this next week they're bringing out a few more items as well uh that new wind stopper uh the wind stopper jacket and pants or the wind stopper jacket's available on right online right now the pants will be on there soon they're actually the ones that me

and chris went to the car wash with oh so you know they call it a wind stopper jacket but it is you know it's a pretty waterproof jacket too um then the pro shell which in alaska was i mean so valuable uh you know when i went this basically rain gear it's yeah it's rain gear yeah it's straight gore-tex hardcore they've added a lot of new zippers a lot of new things like especially for guides or guys that are working with radios or something like that they got a radio pocket and their wind stopper jacket they got you know just several things that they've kind of integrated in the raider pant i have had so many people hit me up about the raider pant that very just comfortable it gives a little more stretch to it uh synthetic fabric that will dry quickly when it gets wet um just a lot of great things coming out new raider boots awesome several new

items that are just just great products we're happy to see them innovating and growing and you know trying to really produce gear that is top notch i mean truly top notch well they're doing great and there's a lot of new gear on their website underarmor.com ua.com richreaper.com and you can also you know once you get on there you can search for baron or whatever and then generally that hunting lineup will come up so um they also have some great boots as well so anyway check it out and uh i don't think you'll be disappointed all right we're gonna do something special this week we're gonna give away around a thousand dollars worth of under armor gear um basically gonna outfit you for your next hunt and with the details on how to win that we're gonna turn it over to jeff all right so what we want you

to do is as you're listening to this podcast we want you to take a screenshot as you're listening we want you to tag epic underscore hunts as well as ua hunt and we want you to uh post it on your instagram or facebook feeds uh we'll be able to get those and from those screenshots that we see come across we're gonna pick a winner we're gonna get you outfitted jacket pants shirt boots we're gonna set you up as well as a little bit of you a little bit of uh epic outdoor swag too so yep be sure to tag us that again is is epic underscore hunts is who you're tagging as well as ua hunt just ua h u n t so super easy you're listening to the podcast right now so all you got to do is take a screenshot of what you're listening to repost that on instagram or facebook wherever on social media and do the tags and you're entered to win and we're gonna hook them up we're gonna do a random

drawing on that and it'll be awesome if you win you're gonna be hooked up with all a whole setup of the new under armor gear so anyway all right let's get it done by september 21st okay so you got one week to enter one week to post um anyway we look forward to giving away that winner and announcing the winner next week with that i guess we just should we just get started in on this podcast we never do the q a yeah let's do a q a podcast i guess chris chris is the one that organizes everything and tells us what we're gonna do he's a little bit bossy that way and uh so with that i guess john you want to kick us off first first question we got alex that says great podcast love hearing the stories and experiences on here my question has to do with field judging bulls and especially want to know what's the number one characteristic you look for in a big bull

is it a long beam long fifths big fronts or mass yeah that's uh that's a that's a great question and i think um we all like that great big back end everybody likes this giant big old whale tail and the whale tail means the end of the beam and the fifth yes you know what i mean we're talking not necessarily a long beam but the way the beam is shaped and so to me um that's more of a look than actual score wise if you want big score your fronts we're talking the first three that's six points if the six points are 20s and the goal is 20s i mean for you know the guides that are like nevada new mexico arizona utah they're heavy into some of these big bulls and they're looking for 370 plus 360 plus type 380 plus or 400 inch i mean you you want 20s 20 20 20 20 20 okay so if you can get 20s up to your four and have a good good fifth a 12 inch fifth 15 inch fifth something like that

and you have a decent beam good good width and mass you've got a 400 inch bull you know 20s is the key you gotta have fronts and so and yeah and you can kind of lay those out and kind of picture the end of their nose and how they curl a lot of times you'll have what looks like a long front they don't curl at all they're just straight they're not as long as you think and so i think measuring sheds is a big key on you know being able to judge those fronts measuring dead bulls is obviously nice too and get your hands on these bulls and really understand what you know it's one thing to have a great look my i got he's got a big back end well yeah but his eights you know his thirds are eight inches long or his fronts are 14 inches long or or you know something like that that hurts a bull when you go 14 14 14 versus 20 20 20 that's a big deal if you have short fifths that's one time

that's short that's one time that's short and a look an overall look on a back end and then and my personal thing and i'll let you guys jump in but if they look like they have average to small swords or fours you know the fourth fourth time i mean it makes everything else look longer than maybe it is and so because you're kind of comparing the sword but if you have a giant sword a 24 incher so you have a 24 incher and and the fronts look long you got a giant bull you you truly do as long as you know he's not 30 30 inches wide on the inside or something like that and so you know and he's got a fifth i mean you gotta you gotta have everything there but i mean i look for a sword then you can kind of base everything off of that if he's got a if he's got like a 16 inch sword but he looks beautiful and awesome he's got the right shape he's gonna be a dang nice bull probably but it'd be hard to

get him much over 350 i mean it's just it just so all that jumps into into being able to judge yeah i think another thing that's for me one of the hardest things that can be deceiving is the beam length if you got a super short beam on a compact bull he might look he might look giant because you got all these long points stacked on a short beam but if he doesn't have that beam length then you're going to lose a lot on score so like you said the fronts i think is number one number two might be yeah yeah your beams are it's an amazing so you could have a you know a short beam let's call it a the the goal is 60 inch beam i mean that's a long beam 58s are great 57 58 inch beams great 55 is good like a good beam you're getting into the 52s 53 54 which is a lot what we have here at southwest desert you know those are short beams those are short beams and you lose a lot you times by two

i mean you're talking 12 inches if it's six inches off you know what i mean or eight inches off you're talking 16 inches and so right there you've lost it's significant um but having said that we have mass out here and we have long thirds and so you could have a like a 60 inches mass is heavy that's 30 inches aside you know um you know 28 27 27 is getting to be light uh and so 26 27 inches aside is is light and so you can kind of base your mass off of that if he's heavy give him 60 you know on paper and then um jason tell me a little bit about that bull you killed a couple years ago out here it was a bull that you hadn't guessed within two inches of what he really scored i think southwest desert southwest desert just a couple just two three years ago oh but people looked at that bull and said that's a 400 inch bull yeah he just he was short beamed but that's about out here

they have that genetic and a lot of times you can you know and he was he's 385 um but but there again we're talking about that whale tail look remember one of the most photogenic bulls yeah and his well tells are amazing beautiful yeah they are and he think 400 yeah but but there's a lot more to a bull than his fifth there's a lot and yeah he had rocking fists they were awesome but you know there's ones twos threes fours he had average fours there's an inside spread there's a beam length and there's a mass factor and so this bull this bull didn't quite have the mass he didn't quite have the beam i mean so yeah he had the look he's awesome 385 amazing i love him and and we can go into that story on you know later on but anyway um there's a lot that comes into play on score but i think i think the

key you know personally i mean you know i like to look at the sword right off the bat you know obviously we like a whale tail i mean it's amazing it's a beautiful look but there's so much to it so much more to it and those beams are hard to judge um if you can get generally on a lot on a big bull you need to get 29 inches 29 inches from his base to his four and then if you double that you got a 58 inch beam so you need 29 inches from his four to his end and and when you measure them a lot of bulls will go 27 25 26 27 29 to his four and then they'll peter off and so you can kind of say that's not double the length that's not you know what i mean and so then you can kind of get a feel that's a 54 inch beam 55 52s and you can really tell you know and so kind of keep that in mind and then obviously the spacing between this uh second and third is critical third and fourth is critical

if everything's jammed together and he just looks like a compact beam he's going to be a compact beam he's not going to grow on you and and then when you have compact beams everything else looks a little longer and they might be long but it's hard to make up that difference so anyway just a few things to think about um get your hands on them but i i mean if you if you have good thirds you have good fronts and thirds and fours it's hard to have a bad bull um unless they're just abnormally narrow or you misjudge the beams and sometimes you get some great looking bulls with 49 inch beams that's 22 inches off from a long beam and so anyway to have the perfect bull would be 20s all the way up with a 58 inch beam and a good normal inside spread which is 40 if they're just an average good solid

they're they're an eight nine year old bull they're gonna an average inside spread is gonna be 40 inches 45s wide 35s narrow and so you can kind of base these numbers write it on paper kill them measure it and then you get better at it and that's you know that's key there's no replacement in my mind for getting those bulls on the ground and measuring them in person just seeing a lot of bulls it's like anything if you do anything enough you're going to get good at it judging bulls is no different you can see them and and try to guess what they are but then if you get them on the ground you can actually measure it and verify if you do that enough you're going to get pretty good at it and that's for me the key that's right there's some bulls obviously when you're talking a half inch per pointless talk a half inch with six uh time measurements one through beams and a half inch

a piece i mean it's really easy it's really easy easy easy to be off even an inch yeah and so pretty soon it's like but and then you have your gut feel this my gut says he's this the item up on paper the paper says this and then you throw a little bit of ground shrinkage in there five inches or so and call it a day and smacking you know and at the end of the day it's not not everything's about score but uh those are kind of everybody has their own look and what they like a bull to look like and uh anyway so we've killed some long-sworded bulls and and that's pretty pretty impressive when you got a 24 25 even a 26 inch sword i mean that's world class and they're awesome i mean there's nothing like them and and yeah we're known to hunt deer and a lot of other things we like to hunt a lot of elk too and we've

sure put a few of them on the ground so anyway is there anything we missed on that question talked about we hit it pretty good all right next question comes from lee and he says i drew a a rifle rut hunt in utah this year looks like my hunt opens on a full moon is the full moon going to make it harder to find big bulls or how can i use that to my advantage yeah you know that's interesting that's an interesting question so generally this is just my opinion and just my perspective and you guys are welcome to chime in as well but that full moon is very bad for deer hunting unless you're hunting in the rut um but you know it's it's just very frustrating to to hunt on a full moon when you're when you're glassing up deer and bedding them and hunting them and killing them that way um because they have most of their activity is at night um having said that during a full moon we'll jump into

deer for just a sec during the full moon makes it to where like they're up and down throughout the day more yeah like they're might get up a little early yeah they get up a little earlier because they're bedded at daylight hungry and they're yeah and they get if they get up for two hours two hours it's kind of a weird they get into a real weird pattern whereas if they feed different too yeah and if it's really hot and it's a and it's dark there's no moon they're going to feed for two or three hours in the morning two or three hours in the evening they have a real set pattern they they lay around a lot in the middle of the day they feed all night or throughout the night off and on pretty heavy then they have more of a off and on pattern in the middle of the day off and on off and on off and on and so anyway it could be a challenge um and so people like to hunt when there's no moon

because the deer are more active morning and evening and for longer periods of time for elk in my from my experience you know my garth and i and my dad were we were hunting new mexico and we had a full moon we had a couple of clients it was clear back in the late 90s and it was a full moon and everybody was you know disgusted about the full moon and stuff we actually found it kicked him into the rut really heavy because there was lots of activity at night and and the timing was right it was the last half of september they wanted to be rutting anyway and they're just they're getting crazy they're cranked it's cool weather at night it's full moon they can see and it was just crazy and then we hunted them hard in the morning and they would bugle for the first hour and a half or so and we'd just get on them and be on them heavy really right up front and then they lay around all day

long these elk could do nothing all day long because they were busy all night not necessarily feeding i mean cows are feeding the bulls are just trashed and carrying on and and rutting and stuff and so we actually had a dang good hunt they were it pushed them into the rut it made up they rutted hard um with the full moon and sometimes people find with heavy hunting pressure that the full moons they struggle with the full moon a little bit because these bulls are rutting like crazy they feel comfortable at night and they feel safe because they're not hunted at night and then come morning they shut up you know they they don't they're not as vocal yeah they're not as vocal and so you could experience that too but a lot of times in a lot of years what's the major complaint we hear hunting guy hunting bulls in september that the ruts off that there's no rut that it's non-existent or whatever

and so this at times either they're going to rut at a full moon and it will fill off but they're rutting while you're sleeping you know or or um or it kicks them in to the rut where where you feel like there was no rut one year you might it might actually help you so it's it's hard to know uh how it's going to be how it's going to affect it but it's not the end all be all sometimes like when you're hunting mule deer early season with a full moon that could be very frustrating it could it's a it's a hunt ruiner at times especially in the desert because they just it's just hot early season and so anyway drew a rifle rut hunt you know i'd enjoy it i'd uh hunt it as hard as you can and i wouldn't let it get you down mentally um you know and so anyway is it harder to find the big bulls and how can i use that to my advantage i mean you're just gonna have to be very aggressive very aggressive

uh early early and late like just you know those bulls have rutted throughout the night and stuff and so you just want to be in the right place at the right time as best you can uh early you guys think it's going to be less of a factor during the rut like luckily he's got the rifle tag in the rut um last year i had a november so late season hunt during the full moon and it was it was a big deal i mean those you just they were active at night and they were bedded they had no reason they had no reason to be up during the day and they weren't rutting so they're tired when they were done right they're tired yeah post rut so they're tired they were out and so they're you just don't see them in the day and it made it really tough so luckily for him he's got a rut tag and it's probably not as big of a deal we've seen like those early season muzzle hunts in new mexico be really good

during a full moon because you know these elk kind of want to still be rutting they can they still kind of don't want the rut to go away and all of a sudden you get more bugling activity because they're it's a full moon and they're active and they maybe remain a little bit active you know what i mean versus if the full moon had been prior to that first muzzle season they had wore themselves out they'd been extremely active you know up leading up to that muzzle season and then tired during the muzzle season so it's anybody's guess we've seen everything we've seen everything in all different variations and so every year it's just a little bit different a lot of it depends on hunting pressure and and you know there's a ton of variables that go into you know what the rut's going to be like and how aggressive it's going to be so anything else to add that you guys can think of no i think

that's covered it so next question is a great one about scouting and and whatnot it's jeremy from florida and he says about when do you think most bulls in the southwestern u.s will be fully developed man we've seen this is this has been crazy so we hunted some great big bulls in the past years and and uh joshua comes comes to mind you know a 424 incher he was pretty much fully developed by july 1st and a lot of these big bulls july 1st is a key is a key date these bulls are done at times um july 10th to the 15th i mean they are done you're just they just finish out earlier than deer where deer deer will gain 50 inches between july 15 and august 10th you know easy if not more and so it just feels you know that southwestern u.s i mean you know they finish early and so you get those rains in

july makes no difference really june very little difference your bulls are significantly developed by mid-june to end of june first part of july and that's part of the issue i think guys are seeing down in new mexico and some of these places this year is is uh you know they're greener than green right now like it's they've had some serious moisture there's grass everywhere knee high grass everywhere but it didn't hit early enough you know it hit what late july august and by then they're done you know uh at least the bulk of them are done and so you're seeing bulls that maybe have good fronts but it just petered off on the back end you know just not uh not necessarily they just didn't have that moisture all the way through you know i've talked to guys who who are seeing bulls that they've seen in years past and they're 25 to maybe maybe 30 inches off you know what i mean um it's just a

it's just a whole different it's okay well i agree with you 100 and so anyway that brings us to question from shane he says i'm from louisiana love to hunt elk in wyoming i hunt in some high country that's pretty rocky i'm looking for a boot that does that does better for me in this in the steep country in the rocks hiking with a pack what boot would you recommend for me oh you know i think that that kinetrek mountain extreme the non-insulated my feet are hot uh so i get the non-insulated ones but pretty hard to beat in steep rocky country for a heavy pack and you've got a heavy mountain boot that you need you need that stiff stiffer boot you know it's a great option to go with a kinetrek they they're just made more of they're more of a mountaineering boot um which is kind of what you're gaming for right there so yeah anyway you might uh you might try out the kinetrek mountain

extreme boots um they're built for it of course guys are using them on sheep hunts as well but it's basically the same type of stuff very heavy there is a lot of extreme uh country in wyoming as well as idaho and a few other places that you know just requires that heavy heavy boot a lot of these earlier season hunts guys are still in tennis shoes especially southwestern u.s and in the desert environment and stuff that's not extremely rocky they're using a real lightweight hiker i'm not going to call it tennis shoes but a lightweight hiker and so anyway but for that would be the kinetrek mountain extremes um i think would be a great choice and so you might go to www.kinetrek.com k-e-n-e-t-r-e-k.com or call jim wenjim 1-800-232-6064 super good friend of ours tell him we sent you great thing about those guys is you can call they'll answer they'll answer your questions

another resource would be go check out our youtube site uh just go to youtube.com search epic outdoors go to our channel and chris has got a whole video on where he went up there to their showroom it's got some tips on how to lace up your boots pretty awesome tell jim you talked to jason that i told him he'd throw on a free pair of socks or something see what he says i'll bet he does it i'll bet he does it but uh anyway all right so all right next one's from chris it says i know you guys have hunted a huge amount of area across the west what are your top three favorite states for hunting elk and why man what do you guys think since we're from utah you gotta have utah on there don't you think yeah it's tough to get a tag tough to get a tag well the season if you get a rifle tag in utah it's hard to beat like just yeah it's another demand reason the downfall of

our big bulls good and bad if you have the tag it's great if they're rutting we hunt them okay we start pre-rut with a bow we're not going to give archers a jump on the guns then we go with the rifle give them perfect rut right and then now these bulls seem to be actually rutting a little bit later and that muzzle's been a killer season been an amazing season so we finish them off with a muzzle and if that's not enough when they're tired and they're feeding and they don't like to get up we'll long range them in the late season you know what i mean it is true utah is hard on bulls it's and we've added a mid-season and a late season we do everything we can do to kill them so anyway so anyway yes um our so yeah utah is hard to beat but at the same time very tough to get a tag i think one of my favorite states treated me the best is new mexico you can get affordable

landowner tags the drawing odds are tough but not brutal there's no point system you can add and subtract that to your application portfolio pretty regularly and easily without feeling guilt you know you always feel guilt when you pull a you know i don't really want to spend the money and so you start not gaining points for states that you have points in that's a lot of guilt have no guilt adding subtracting states that don't have points like new mexico idaho places like that if it doesn't work for your schedule don't apply if it does apply and apply with an outfitter if you'd go with normally uh price of an outfitter would be less than a landowner tag in most states and and yet you're buying drawing odds you're buying down your drawing odds you know kind of like a little bit of a high priced tag in wyoming where you're you know generally speaking the theory is to buy better

drawing odds by paying the higher fee so anyway i like new mexico's key nevada's unbelievable it's off the charts right now in fact we sold landowner tag for like 4 500 bucks where a guy can kill 330 bulls and so that was yesterday kind of a deal for the membership where we emailed it out and uh part of part of an epic benefit of being a member of epic here but great opportunities in nevada i love love nevada um they they allow archery hunters to flirt with the rut they generally speaking they they do have some rut hunts uh here and there but generally speaking they allow them to rut stress-free and then uh start clobbering them there at the end of october and hit them hard in november um and so you know nevada new mexico uh arizona absolutely must apply for state we've hunted up multiple times and they have some some seasons you can draw with nine points you're not going to

hunt giants but it'll be late season for dang nice bulls and then or you can hold out and get an archery tag in 13 to 15 years guaranteed or maybe even get lucky and draw on the random and so and then i would say like wyoming it's hard to say these are my top three favorite states but wyoming is an amazing elk state as far as opportunity goes i mean it's really hard to beat you've got great potential but opportunity like where else are you going to be able to get a tag that often and go hunt good bulls it is it's awesome they got the general tag that still offers great bulls but a lot of those giant general bulls are coming out of wilderness areas but still it's worth the price of admission hiring somebody and then you can hunt you know if you draw a rifle tag in a lot of these units you can hunt with a bow in september and then finish up with a rifle if you needed to

um wyoming is just a great state it's a great state it's gaining a lot of a lot of traction for guys that are wanting you know the 330 plus bulls and there's a number we really have a lot of demand and interest we we do a great job in our uh publication of breaking down the different units and there's lots of options that's what i love about wyoming there's lots and lots and lots of options and for guys especially now right now with a little bit of a boom in the economy you know you can maximize some of those points you know there there are areas on these private ranches that you can draw with four to five points maybe and you can get in there and chase 330 plus bulls yes you can draw it often you know so yes you're buying your way into there but you have to draw the tag in wyoming so plan on it book it go hunt private land and it's basically the equivalent of maybe jumping

another four points might take you eight or nine points to have that equivalent hunt in another unit go on that private spend a little bit of money but you're hunting in half as much time possibly too you know that's great it's it there's a lot of theories and and there's no one right theory everybody has their own situation that works for them some guys are not going to go guided no matter what and they truly want to do save a buck you know a lot more than a buck but they want to save some cash and and do it on their own they get more satisfaction and there's hunts there for you there there is and so anyway um let's say that i'm a whitetail hunter from georgia or something like that and never gone elk hunting but i want to start i need some practice just where would you direct me let's say i just want experience archery rifle and so uh let's do archery where do you want

to send me that that you know i'm not not worried about size but i want practice well we actually have that question down here a little ways um but uh there's probably a lot of options for a guy like that in archery uh colorado offers a lot of over-the-counter archery hunting in most the state right most western part of the state the majority of colorado is i don't know i want to say 75 but a lot of colorado is is available over the counter for archery and same with idaho right yeah same with yeah rifle as well and and same with um idaho as well so archery guy if you want experience you can get experience and still be gaining points across these western states and then and then there's even easier to draw units in places like uh new mexico and even arizona does have a you know multiple units

that are easier to draw that aren't known for the giant giants that that everybody thinks about when you talk about arizona so there's plenty of opportunities plenty of options um the the one thing that's a little bit tougher people always say and i don't know i guess we'll just kind of go off on a tangent people always say you know it's the hardest thing to kill is a giant muley the giant muleys are the hardest thing to kill and da da da da go kill 400 inch next year okay go kill a 400 inch bull anywhere i know a guy that's that's been hunting white mountain he's been hunting a lot a lot of the different indian reservations as well as the landowner tags in nevada in near ely in ely and has yet to kill he's got several 390s has yet to kill a 400 inch bull and he spent the money and year after year after year

um so it's very difficult where you know and then part of the equation to killing big anything in my opinion is hunting them multiple times year after year so if you're not successful this year that tag's available next year and you can get the job done on on a bull you named or whatever two or three bulls you named and okay now let's say you're going to go to wyoming or somewhere utah or whatever you get your tag we'll go get that tag again next year how you're going to do it you know it's a lot seems a little bit more difficult the barrier of entry is a little tougher so to speak if we're going to talk in business terms of being able to hunt the same bulls year after year after year without really shelling out the major cash you know and so it's just tough where you can hunt big bucks on our general here in southern utah and you can do it year after year if you do it right

do a dedicated hunter program whatever you're hunting pine valley zion southwest desert beaver whatever and you can name these bucks if you spend the time and then you're watching them grow and then you're smoking them and so it just there's just uh i want to i don't want to say there's more deer opportunity but i'm going to say there's more deer opportunity you know and versus some of these elk i mean like i say go knock yourself down one this last year um i killed a 380s bull in new mexico chris you were there and and yet how do i how do i can't buy my way into there again there's no unawide landowner tag and i didn't draw a tag again right so let's just say like if i want to hunt one of the bulls that um i saw last year well i can't you know what i mean you can't and so it's a little bit tougher it's just so it's just different it's a different dynamic and and some of

these guys are are spending the cash and hunting places they can buy landowner tags and these landowner tags are running 15 to 20 grand and so you know and they'll buy them multiple years and then they kind of get a feel and and they're naming these bulls and then and working it that way and so anyway just a little bit of a tangent well with that let's talk about let's talk about our license application service um and i want to talk to ames about a little bit see what she's working on let's bring her in all right everybody so we got amy ducking in here with us a lot of you guys know her from uh epic outdoors license application service um she's a significant person within our office and ab and i work with her heavy where she does a lot of our data entry and managing of and filing of our applications

adam and i choose the units obviously and we do a lot of the applying or some of the applying and i want to say a lot of it because that's all relative but it's a lot in our eyes so anyway we appreciate amy and all she's doing i just kind of wanted to talk about um the epic license app service and kind of get a feel for a what you're working on this time of year everybody's out in the field but what should they be thinking about and um of course it's going to be time for renewing getting their friends in and and all of that and so we just kind of want to wrap our heads around like what are you doing today like what are you doing so right now this is when i update everybody's points and make sure we've got that accurate in our file so that we know how many we've got for next year so that we can pick a unit that oh he's got a chance of drawing let's put him in this unit because he's got the

right amount of points for it i think going into next year you know if you didn't draw that tag or that unit that you wanted maybe you need to talk to jason and adam and say hey what did i do wrong how can i fix it so that i have a better chance of getting it this year so you have a lot of guys that hit you direct they might be intimidated to talk to us or whatever and don't want they think their questions are dumb which they're not and so they'll talk to you what are guys what are guys looking for out there i mean there's a lot of guys that are you know wanting to draw fairly regular and and they're asking you a lot of these questions as well they want the big you know the big deer the big elk they want that dream tag that everybody seems to be chasing um i think making sure that they're

actually talking to you or adam before they do their application that not just some of them are looking like oh last year was fine let's just do the same thing maybe you actually need to look at what you're doing and tweak it instead of just do the same thing over and over again maybe yeah like if you just go after the very top species year in and year out you know it's different than hit than maybe giving us a specific parameter i want a 330 bull 340 bull like if you just say trophy well 330 is trophy but adam and i might look at it and say he said trophy we're looking at 360 plus or 350 plus there's a difference in drawing odds there's a difference or maybe there there's certain states out there that you can apply for that like we save we reserve arizona utah nevada for the very premium you know quality and then all the while we're gaining points there we're we're trying to draw

new mexico idaho wyoming be more aggressive go ahead go hunt go kill some 330 bulls you realize what a 330 bull is freaking big six yeah don't just waste your time building points for that big dream tag yeah unless you've got other plans unless you're booking hunts on a regular basis or you've got other plans but there's a lot of guys that do want a very customized like if you think about it if you think about what you know well i had to sit out this year why'd you have to sit out well because i was holding for that dream tag well you're going to be sitting out for 10 years let's not sit out for 10 years let's go hunt you know what i mean yeah and let's save for that dream tag so also what we've got going on right now is we're applying guys for points for arizona bison um we're also applying texas desert sheep and then the point only we got point points only that you've applied a lot of

guys for for wyoming and montana yeah montana that's a new one montana closes the last day in september so the 30th so we're cranking through on those of course you're cranking through i want to say yes but i'll take credit for that we're let's call it we're right we're a team here right all the while i'm in the hills i've been applying people and so anyway uh but yeah ames is is awesome she's great she's been just amazing to work with and and uh very attentive to detail and to our guys needs and that's the one thing nice about our licensed app service our guys are not numbers like they're people they are people i so love talking to all of our clients when they call in i get to hear the best hunting stories and we joke and laugh and they're i just love them you do develop relationships it's been interesting is you you uh you apply guys over and over and over 10 15 times

right yeah and so very you know you got two application periods or three in arizona like you get to know people you know them on paper and then you visit with them and pretty soon you know their kids and and you know a lot about them i do yeah it's great it's not just a clientele it's it's people and kind of managing the funnest part of their life but this is the yeah i get to help them go have fun and i love that isn't that cool and when they draw tags how cool is it to be called i love that that's my favorite i'm like are you serious that's usually the first thing are you serious yep yes i do enjoy hearing that we know when somebody draws a tag because you know amy lets us know like it's it's great like it is exciting when guys draw tags and so it's like we get fired up you know so we look everybody up when we not only do we apply everybody but we look every single guy up

and uh and help them figure it out from a to z some of them want outfitters some of them want self-guided list of members who've drawn up maybe we've drawn it and so anyway it's and then of course that's all going to come back to us in stories and photos and and then a happy client is a long-term client and so it's it's just awesome but right now it's the off season but it's not the off season for amy she's continuing to apply manage your portfolio and and for everybody that's out there you will be getting a renewal and it'll update your points and it'll give you the notes that we have on file for you and uh we expect that there'll be some few changes we all have changes from year to year and and uh maybe your work schedule changes or or even your financial situation changes uh good or bad and so we make those adjustments or maybe you've booked a hunt like two years in advance and you

know what that hunt's going to be during a specific time frame we keep notes on that stuff we know when you're going on your hunt that's right we try not to apply during that time and we want you to draw tags so you tell us to apply it we're going to apply it like we're going to be aggressive trying to get you whatever you're really looking for so a guy like that like like there are some guys that we always laugh because they're doing everything under the sun a particular outfitter that's a good friend of ours comes to mind but the dude draws tags yeah he draws yes he does he's going mountain goat hunting this year hey yeah in fact he talked to me about it uh yesterday he talked to me about yesterday it's just it's fun man colorado mountain goat it's like man but he does draw he does draw he he's a lucky bugger dude he's pretty lucky but he does everything is there anybody i mean we don't

have many people that does he does stuff yeah adam and i are like really well yeah he said it this guy kills so he wants it all right well we just want to visit with you for a minute ames thank you for everything that you've been doing and and what you continue to do of course there's a lot of our clients that are listening and kind of for some that haven't called in you let you you know know that ames is a valid person yeah with feelings i have feelings she's a legit human being and she is working on your files and so okay and one thing to just make a note of in the process of becoming a licensed app member give us a call we'll send you an application form you will fill that out top to bottom give you a breakdown on states and then don't be afraid to call in and walk through that application with jason or adam yeah or you jeff even you're doing you're you're working with a lot of

our guys as well and so i'm gonna throw that out there but um having said that we are a hundred dollars a state that includes two up to two species a fifty dollars a state includes two species 100 for three or more and 500 max and so we're the most affordable the best value we're we're very uh intimately familiar with the state systems and and we become that way with your applications personally and so anyway for for five hundred dollars you can do basically everything here in the west and uh and know that it's done right and we and we specifically choose the units that match what you want to do and you guys are gaining the information on the units by the research that you're doing for the states anyway it goes so hand in hand you guys are making phone calls calling biologists talking to hunters talking to outfitters in the areas all all those different things well that reflects on our

license application side because we can see where the you know where the trends of drawing and stuff are well you know this one's kind of maybe a little under under applied for well and that goes hand in hand with two with um our consultants you're calling us and you're talking to the guys that have done the research it's not like there's assigned consultants and there's assigned people that research and all they do is research or all they do is consult we do it all because we're researching it all and so we're fit to consult we're fit to choose your units all right well let's get back to the regular podcast appreciate you ames yep kind of to tie into that uh license application service you know a lot of guys wonder like why would i have somebody do my applications it's kind of personal it is personal

so is going to see the doctor so is going and having your taxes done they kind of know your social security number right they know your ei number and they're telling you what you can and can't buy like that's personal quit telling me what i can and can't do well you know you're gonna have some major tax burden otherwise and so same thing with the license applications i don't want to change my own oil anymore but i don't want to just jiffy lube doing it either not nothing against jiffy lube but i'm just saying i want to know it's done right the caps on i got the right right oil i got the right filter whatever and i didn't just you know what i mean and so and it's personal because it's my truck it's going to leave me high and dry or not and um and it's the same thing with taxes you don't want just anybody doing your taxes nothing against the freaking corner street tax guys but at the same

time i like to be personal guys like for you you need to buy a truck this year you need to buy a camp trailer or or you need to you know not spend your money somebody that you put trust in to tell you what to do where to spend your money that's what we're doing in license app our license application we're telling people where to spend money we're telling people where to invest 10 years of of non-refundable hunting license fees um and things like that and and then we're telling people to go with this outfitter this eight grand is worth it this seven grand is worth it not only that you got two weeks of your time or you got and plus gear and so it is very personal to people and and we get that and we understand that and we don't take it lightly and i think that comparison to a financial planner is is pretty fitting you know we'll look at your hunting portfolio as a whole

and say oh you're you really want a 330 plus elk and you're only applying in you know one or two states well we've got a great opportunity over here you should really consider applying in this other state or things like that yep all right i'm done talking about that crap i'm gonna need another monster and i wasn't going to talk about monster but and i should give pepsi a plug because i'm now drinking a pepsi because i feel guilty having two monsters okay that's the equivalent continue with you have to drink what four bottles of water now i don't know what was the equivalent that some kind of ratio we had anyway sean hanneman hit me and he's like dude i'm just telling you you need to drink four bottles of water i'm like well how big because if they're big bottles i'm gonna have a problem we're gonna be doing this podcast from the restroom

caffeine's a diuretic or whatever that means and all i know is you gotta pee a lot of it so anyway so now i'm on to a pepsi i love pepsi speaking of tensions okay 150 calories versus zero but anyway all right next question for mitch i drew an elk tag september 24th through october 5th this year in utah i've been scouting but i'm but am i wasting time what things can i look for in the summer and early fall when there's an archery season and an early rifle before my hunts i would personally be freaking scouting uh as close to your hunt as you can september 20th to the 23rd september 15th to the 23rd whatever how much time you got you scout close to it because you can't scout the rut unless you're in the rut that's the same thing with mule deer you can't scout the rut unless you're in the rut you go hunt mule deer you know go scout the winter range right now

for like a third season colorado tag but yet third season colorado it's a whole different ball game right now you're not going to see any deer and people are complaining in colorado about not seeing deer and well what's it going to be like i don't even know a good buddy of mine i don't know if i'm going to hunt my third season with my kid in this unit because my other you know my brother has a muzzle to hunt we haven't seen anything okay relax the deer come out of the woodwork and literally there's a lot of woodwork over there and so you know it's all gonna it's all gonna be okay and he's gonna have lots of deer to hunt and so anyway i think that's kind of the same thing we're talking about here is is yeah you can pre-scout you're gonna see maybe a pre-scout i think road systems water and cows where the cows and stuff but even that changes a little bit um so you can look at

things but don't get all don't get all bothered by it you know we used to hunt southwest desert prime example and you could pre-scout that sucker and it sucks you know you're just like this is terrible like and all of a sudden when the rut hits there are bulls everywhere john you remember your hunt bulls everywhere right and and you're like where do they come from like where do they come from how can they hide they're freaking yellow school buses you know and um and i scouted heavy before that hunt but did you know good yeah it didn't makes you feel warm and fuzzy you call it you call it family time and you know kind of appease the wife and tell her you're doing everything for the kids and and then really you never found a bull you wish you wasted gas yeah we did you do learn country and you learn access especially if it's not close to home so i mean there is something to be said for

that but as far as specific animals or bulls or things like that no and they're gonna move it was they walk there's been bulls we documented bulls um you know on top of one mountain that rutted on top of another in another state you know what i mean and so um 10 15 miles is not yeah out of the question for a bull to travel to rut you know yeah it's nothing so anyway uh yeah you can do it and what things to look for i was always taught by a good friend that it's a significant elk hunter um bulls when bulls rut and when elk rut they make they make uh there's a there's they they they trash trees they trash the ground like you can tell when it where places are good or not so there's constantly times even when i'm deer hunting i'm i'm seeing elk rubs and you can tell an elk rub from deer rub i mean it's like yeah some blew up instead of someone rubbed a chair it's it's

unbelievable and so um elk like to make a mess wherever they go they they like to be known they they trash everything and so anyway you can tell uh you can tell and those are the things i'd look for is is uh heavy rub trees lots of rubs they they pound springs they pound the ground um you know it's not hard to tell when you have a real low dense low elk densities you know it can be a little bit tougher but at the same time you know you can tell it's pretty easy to tell between uh wild mustangs and and elk you can tell where they're making tracks you just got to pay attention so anything else what else no i think this next uh question uh we've covered a little bit but uh waylon's asking he feels like big bulls in utah have declined over the past 10 years what facts what factors do you think have caused that to

happen and what can we do to improve quality we've killed them we've killed them we've killed them we briefly mentioned that and that's the thing my dad always said it is these days will end back in early 2000s mid 2000s when it was just unbelievable we peaked what maybe 2006 seven yeah ish and it was it was retarded um having said that it's like uh oh it's like employees you're not going to give them a wage and back off and get away with it you know what i mean like let's say you you've let utah hunt bulls in the rut with a rifle are you really going to change that without a huge shiz storm you know what i mean and that's what's going to happen back away we've hunted the muzzle rifle in my opinion new mexico does it right if you're gonna you can they can issue tons of tags in october and take a minimal have a minimal take but yet give people an opportunity if you hunt hard

you might kill a giant we've killed several 380 bulls i've killed i've been the benefactor of that at the same time they get the revenue from tag sales they can sell more tags they have five day seasons they're not allowing freaking 10 11 you know plus days depending on the seasons in the rut they don't let you do that and rifle with a rifle so so they're getting the tag revenue but yet still allowing archery hunter who has minimal take a couple of seasons in september to hunt them when they're vulnerable and then come back in with uh powder and and use it you know and muzzle or and rifle hunt in october november and when when the bulls are tougher you taught chris you talked about it how tough was it versus what it would have been like if you'd have had that muzzle tag in september yeah it was a game changer i mean i i was talking to guys the whole time who had hunted just a couple

weeks prior to me and they were in the rut and it was a completely different hunt those bulls just shut up they disappeared it was hot weather and so without the rut they're gone yeah so so that's what's happened to utah we've killed them also uh game and fish they they don't manage for score they're not managing for score they're managing for age class they lump them into ages what they feel not what we want like i feel bad southwest desert should be managed tighter we give way too many tags i feel bad about it pisses me off really i don't just feel bad i get angry well and you grew up because you grew up punting that yeah and i and i love it and we've been in it and yet the blm won't manage the horses and everybody blames game and fish it's really blam manage horses and the blam can't won't

hogtide whatever you call it won't manage their horses but we're managing elk and and the cattlemen course need to be horses need to be managed but they won't do that so we might as well manage elk and so we keep cutting down the numbers and and our heart on the elk and age group and whatnot so it's a very sensitive topic in a lot of places um but knowing what that could be what was uh just is not going to be and then two anytime we sell conservation tags and and guides like the conservation tags because you can sell a hunt to somebody to a potential client when you add money to the equation significant money we're talking tags that are 15 20 25 40 grand 50 grand for a tag depending on the unit and then you add teams of good hunters teams of outfitters where the hunter's going to make good on that tag

they're going to kill the best bull in the unit they're killing them and multiple of them right when you and it's one thing to sell one or two tags another thing to sell multiple tags in all the seasons and so i just think there's just a lot of variables a lot of factors that could come into play but basically we're the biggest predator and elk has and you have to manage predators and we need to be managed and uh and and it's hard to do it when you've got seasons in place now we could kick back tags and go very minimal tags early season and then kick in with more tags late season and gradually move in that direction but again people have been saving 18 19 20 points to go hunt these places and they're going to scream pretty loud scream pretty loud my father my brother got to hunt because he saved points and now you're taking that opportunity from me you know and i mean

it's just it's one thing it's like i say you give somebody something it's hard to take it back same thing with whether we're trying to move away from general season deer in wyoming for the residents you're not going to take it away from very easily they're going to kick and scream and so it's it's managing politics a lot of the game and fish manage politics versus managing wildlife managing wildlife you don't hunt them in the rut you don't hunt animals in the rut you don't hunt them even colorado hunting third and fourth seasons on mule deer you'd have bigger bucks if you don't hunt them in the rut you don't hunt animals in the rut when you do you're going to have less potential than what you would otherwise have what do you think that said i love hunting them in the rut give me a third and fourth season tag

give me a rifle elk tag if it was like nevada we'd buy three or four kill them all right right because if i don't the next guy's getting isn't that isn't that the mentality out there that is but although yeah you've let uh more than a couple bucks pass that that i thought you were crazy for just yeah just let them let's play that one in southern idaho last year yeah just oh man anyway and hey you let one live in colorado how about that that's different that's not a purpose uh john dead rest you didn't have to admit that john that was that was open to interpretation until you said that he went ahead and defined it for us he went there i opened the door all right let's move on let's go to a question from lewis and i like this one these we're gonna do today yeah all right keep going more i recently watched your youtube episode uh from jeff john and his son

case and hunting in idaho i have two boys and would like to get them on elk hunts that aren't extremely physical where they could shoot a decent bull where would you start well um idaho is a good one what was your mentality let's talk about your mentality about applying there there was new opportunities yes and and scary like not not like tried and trued but willing to take a chance yes we knew there was issues because we knew there was depredation issues with these elk here so we knew that we knew there was a problem with bulls here and they were all of a sudden jumping up the amount of tags they separated unit 45 unit 52 pulled those apart made it its own individual hunt so okay so in my mind i'm thinking draw odds more tags split unit new hunt okay this is an opportunity to draw a tag right so that was kind of the direction i was going i knew there was good bulls you know

we'd heard about good bulls even being killed by the fish and game in that unit like because they're in the middle of cornfields wiping wiping corn out you know what i mean so so we knew it was an issue so we knew there was opportunity there um i knew the area just somewhat you know familiar with the area so i'm like well hey this is a great opportunity yeah you know um just just knowing just knowing what the potential could have been there so you know that was the direction that we went you know and we actually applied i split us all up so we each applied for a different hunt you know there's three different hunt at times we all applied for different hunt seasons so broke it up so we didn't put four people in for once we meeting your family me and my two boys yeah and you did that within the

same unit within the same unit different seasons just not competing against each other not competing against each other so just just threw a name in the hat you know all the way across as luck would have it i mean case and drew you know if i had to choose again he drew the hunt that i would probably choose your oldest boy yep my oldest boy how old was he at the time 14 13 13 13 yep 13 so anyway he drew i think the odds last year were like 1 in 10 1 in 12 somewhere in there i'm imagining they're going to jump this year just from what i imagine they jumped this year a little bit just because there was there were some great bulls killed you know um but you know that's kind of what i'm looking for for the kids i'm looking for an area that maybe not i'm not worried about killing them a 380 bull at

this point you know i'm just not you know i don't have to have that giant potential when i'm applying for my kids i want opportunity so in applying i'm gonna apply for like in new mexico i might go a 51 52 something like that opportunity hunts you know if a guy is looking for a true opportunity uh to get their kids on my kids aren't archery hunters so i have to take that one off off the map i just haven't i haven't pushed him toward that because archery takes time we we know archery takes time i mean it's brutal and starting with a september 1st start date on most of these elk seasons it's hard to pull your kid out of school and the first few weeks of school to go two days in a row it's hard usually it's evenings dad i can give you this evening this evening and this evening and you're like so so i had so that pushes me to rifle right rifle or muzzleloader and some of

these states have kind of a different pool for the for the youth for youth hunters so you're you're increasing odds that way in some of these states uh season dates even adam did yeah adam did a late season elk hunt in arizona very very did applied very aggressively knowing that the it was an easy draw and uh his oldest daughter got an elk tag and so it'll be late season it'll be interesting it'll be fun right yeah and that's the same thing you know same thing with what you you're doing and what i'm doing with my kids and like even in wyoming colton's got an elk tag and come to find out he's not gonna be able to hunt very much uh very frustrating to dad but having said that we're gonna still make the most of it and uh but with six points i knew he'd get it and so we're just we're gaining them points where

it makes sense but then being very aggressive where it makes sense as well and trying to get them on hunts so lots of opportunities and not that physical a lot of people talk about wilderness and backcountry camping and and um all these kinds of you know crazy opportunities and those are great it's great for kids to backpack and learn how to do all that but having said that the lion's share of the hunting out there is not done from a backpack tent so lots of opportunities next question's from uh craig what's the biggest bull you've ever hunted can you share the story and some history on that hunt yeah so well there's this is a kind of a couple two-part deal so the biggest bull ever guided a very uh affectionate toward both of these bulls happened back in uh 2000 i found a pair of sheds 2001 off joshua we killed him in 03 we also killed goofy in 03 videoed goofy in 2001 as well and he was

we figured 330 340 when we killed goofy he was 434 is a 5x8 and so anyway he had 28 inch thirds and 27 or six inch fours and uh kind of crazy really crazy bull and joshua found his sheds didn't know there was any elk in the area and found his sheds right off the bat uh well meaning right off the bat meaning while i was looking for deer uh pair of elk sheds and that was his demise uh knowing we could hunt him late and where he would be late uh because that's where they shed and so ended up picking up his sheds and as a five or a six by seven uh he was 424 um his sheds and so anyway and then ended up picking up another set of his sheds that were over 400 and then it was a drought year 2002 i figured he was 380s ish um but he looked smaller than that because he was so heavy he was so heavy but he looked a little

smaller than that drought really kicked his butt in 2003 he came back bigger than ever and uh he ended up being uh you know 420s again with his with if he would have had his he had 10 inches broke off his third so anyway um went like 412 or 414 so um rush young killed both those bulls and and it was quite a quite a story watching these watching these bulls i mean goofy we killed um we knew where he rutted and so we ended up with a landowner tag in utah and uh hunted goofy waited for him to come in it was a long long saga there um trying not to let people know where i was at and what our plan was and uh hunted him for the year prior he was uh had a giant he was um had a giant fifth on one side on this five point side he had a giant fifth both sides and it's identical same bull like these thirds are jammed

against the fours i mean there's no question 100 it's the same bull it's crazy how they change a little bit and uh figured he was 440s in the drought year so wherever he summered it was like a wet spot whatever spring it was a lot of thick trees where i think he summered and a lot of grass even in a drought year because he's the spring and the wet ground and whatnot maybe versus other bulls that were short they were short fifths were there ever sheds found off him no never sheds found and and looked pretty hard and so and other other guys i mean you don't know you'd know about it it was back in the day when like before utah's boom it was i mean one of the best bulls ever killed in the state of utah at the time and so uh very significant in people's minds and my mind especially so anyway um named

them hunted them um for for uh goofy we hunted the rut in september with a rifle went in instead of coming in on the normal road we walked two miles from another road and to a gps coordinate in the middle of the night and got there to where he would go to the trees they would rush to they would feed in the burn and rush to the trees to bed and you got to be in front of them if anybody's ever hunted behind elk you guys have you can't catch them you can't catch them and so anyway we were in place and in comes some traffic two or three vehicles or whatever people hunting normal hunting pressure i mean landowner tags allow you to hunt public land during the regular season so we were hunting during the regular season and you get pressure and the pressure of the trucks the headlights that they just naturally start gravitating toward the trees and we're in front of them daylight breaks

and goofy's chasing cows and and we shoot him um pretty it was pretty amazing it's a life-changing experience for me hunting one bull watching him in 2003 to or 2001 2002 and then killing him in 2003 and uh anyway and then later that year russ had a tag and we watched joshua uh leave his summer range videoed him in the velvet have his sheds video him in the velvet watch him leave and track him down tracked him for miles uh from his summer range it rained and it was in the desert and there was these other bulls we'd videoed the other bulls then no joshua and uh watched him and then there's this lone bull track and i tracked his lone bull track for miles and he walked in a straight line and walked by the ponds out in the joshua joshua cactuses i mean this is why we named you joshua went walked by the ponds didn't even get a drink like just kept on going because it was rainy and it was

cool weather at the end of august like august 25th jumped him bedded out in the joshua's and he took off to the opposite side of the valley i jumped up on a set of rocks and watched him in a little dust trail because it obviously in the desert it warms up quick and the ground dries out i see this little dust trail four miles away making making tracks and gone he's leaving gone never going to parts that i've never seen him in and i don't know where the nearest cows are the nearest cows might be 40 miles i don't know there was no cows in the unit that i knew of never had seen one didn't have trail cameras of one obviously we didn't run trail cameras back then i mean there was no no know where my options were gone and so we had to wait for him to come back to where he sheds and russ had the governor's tag and was able to hunt until december 31st we waited after christmas we

pounded it in november pounded it and i pounded it so hard november um that was same year i killed that 234 buck but you know wasn't even going to hunt my tag and russ was like you need to take a break and hunt your tag and this is october october november december christmas comes and goes we're now down to the last four or five days hit like december 26th december 27th i think we saw joshua show up to the winter range with 10 inches broke off his third and then we tracked him he he we blew him from a mile away he's just very skittish and there was a light dusting of snow and we tracked him and a lion had come in and tracked him as well so we're tracking him in the line then the line veered off and then we just ended up tracking him down and uh russ shot him in his bed and so anyway that was uh by then it was a couple of days of tracking him and and playing cat

and mouse and it was december 29th or whatever so that was back when i was a kid and and uh taught taught me a lot about all every every animal every one of these animals but you know chris i'll let you tell the story maybe um that 386 bull at six by in new mexico that you were on there with me that was a significance a five-day hunt very significant story and awesome that chris was there and chris filmed that we were filming for uh hunting full our tv our uh company there and it's on one of their shows dvds i think isn't it and so anyway i'll let you tell that it was it was one of my favorite hunts i'd ever been on uh and i think it's because we worked so hard um it was a unit that had just barely opened it had been closed for i don't know 20 years or so and so jason drew a tag knew that the unit was just

opening and we go out there we knew nothing about the area and so we were starting from square one and did the scouting as we normally would looking at maps and and talking to people who live there and trying to figure this place out and it was it was a challenge what we ended up doing was we put out some trail camera um trail cameras on some waters out in this flat thick country in the desert and there's no way to glass this country because it's so thick and flat and but we had these these trail cameras and ended up having a giant bull come into the water and so we knew he's there but really like how are we going to hunt that bull that was our challenge and so we we tried everything like anything we could think of it's sandy country so we're brushing out tracks at the water every every single day we'd drag a tree yeah dragging a tree up and down the road and just waiting for tracks to

come across to try to figure out where this bull's going what direction is he coming in from to try to just figure this out it came to the point where this bull was good enough and i remember jason was like it's this bull or nothing we're either going to kill this bull or we're going to go home without one because this this unit had another area that was up on the mountain where you could shoot a bull and there were 350 and 360 bulls that we had that we could have shot but jason wanted this bull and he was he was worth worth investing everything into and so we moved all our stuff out to that area and slept in the back of the truck yeah slept to the back of the truck cold freaking that was that was about the coldest i've ever been i mean where was canvas cutter when we need no kidding we're sleeping in the back of that truck and it was just freezing but anyway day after

day would go by and i mean because we went out early to scout and it's only a five-day season so those extra days were huge we're hunting and the season comes along and we're in like four days and and it's it's closing in quick and we're thinking this is not going to happen but we just kept after it we're trying to figure out what to do and so we pull out the maps again and we think well let's there's some waters that we have not been to let's just go check them out and see if we can do anything else to make this happen and it was the middle of the afternoon i think about we had lunch and i think it's one or one o'clock or so and we started driving the four-wheeler we just started driving we're gonna just do something maybe we'd cut a track in the sand maybe maybe we'd catch him on water something but but we weren't gonna quit we were just keep moving and keep keep after it and

we're driving along and we were miles from the water that we had him camera on we come around this corner and look on the four-wheeler on the four-wheeler and this bull is standing on the side of the road to rutting a cow 50 yards yeah 50 yards it was i mean his his wanger was hanging out he wasn't we're not talking we think he was breeding he was breeding and he was a little bit dumb in the rut because he stood there for just a second and it was a cluster dude i had a full gun case latched down everything strapped down with 14 freaking bungees you know all backpacks on top of that because because you can't carry the gun uncovered on the four-wheeler that is dude it's like who are you gonna put all your gear and chris is filming and he's got all his shiz and i got all my shiz long distance optics that you don't need she can't see 20 yards and so anyway by the time we got the gun

off the bike the bike stopped turned off gun out then what took took a shot and it was probably uh 50 yards and and we were in a thick country and that bull just took off into the trees and we ran we yeah we ran on foot as fast as we could run after that bull and he was hit good but we were able to get another shot in him jason i i don't know how he did it but it was it was just perfect he he dropped to the ground at just the right moment and that bull was in a spot where there was an opening in the trees where he could see the vitals and he was able to thread a shot right through there and that bull came down and it it was just one of those experiences that you always remember because you worked so hard and you thought that it was not going to happen but we just didn't give up and it was it's kind of a

testament to never giving up just like this last year chris when killed that bull the last day yeah basically yeah the last of the morning we're basically done we're driving again we're driving home driving roads works right we're driving home and and notice a bull outside of the window the bull we been looking for and we're like what the crap there he is and uh anyway we'll save that story for another podcast but it is staying it is staying till the end it's you know and yeah the end was only five days but four days pre pre-scout on top of that it gets to be a five a nine to ten day project and and a grind there's no elk there there's no their elk the unit was closed because there's no elk and so anyway well john tell us about your uh your your big bull out here out west tell us that's the southwest desert yeah that was that was fun because we had we had a team there and for me

you know hunting with people that i enjoy it makes it you know makes it for me so going out and and and you know the camp life and the the scouting and all that uh pre and post you know that's what makes it fun and rewarding and uh wow i'd scouted that like crazy but like you said it wasn't you know it wasn't in the rut and and so i was able to learn a lot but but really didn't turn up anything that that we were really going for and then everybody else showed up and and we did a big camp i do want to tell one story right before i was newly remarried at the time and and she's from france so um never been around elk hunting or anything you know of the sort so when we were scouting one time we were out and we were we had camped and we were in the back of the truck just sleeping in the back of the truck

elk comes up in the middle of the night right next to the truck and bugles come on and she about came out of her skin so your wife freaks out she's from france she's like that doesn't sound like a red stock she's like yeah she thinks you know

anyway i didn't even wake up you know and she's just like john john there's a bowl right there she's acting like she likes you yeah so she thought he was gonna eat us you know i've just never been around it so that was fun and uh but then just ate it up after that you know just love the experience and then everybody you know came out like i said it was just fun one of the other you know fun things that happened on that no not fun for dusty but he got hit by lightning oh i forgot it was numb you know for days dusty but yeah yeah he got hit by light he he was unloading this four-wheeler or loading it i think it was loading it um and oh he's unloading it anyway um lightning hit the he had some like a metal rack in his truck or whatever lightning hit the metal rack and ended up kind of hitting getting him

uh by default not direct not a direct hit yeah but close but his feet were on fire his feet were on fire and we we ended up we went back to the cabin we were staying in the cabin he had his i'll never forget he had his shoes kicked off and like he'd been there all night and we're like oh you're just enjoying a nice evening at the cabin huh you know and he's like i get hit by lightning and my feet are on fire right now we're like no way they're on fire and he goes they're burning burning blew through the end of his toes and burned his feet yeah so see that you could i don't know i didn't say hey show me your big toe but yeah he got he got hit and it was a significant hit on him so anyway numb for a while after that but yeah that was kind of crazy anyway long story short we'd hunted pretty hard and we

were chasing bulls and and on them and and whatnot and and uh but the uh the bull i finally finally ended up killing uh my buddy kurt located just glass and it was nice because i you know i had a group of friends four or five of us and and we'd split up you know mornings and stuff and and and kurt found this bull and uh he said yeah i think there's there's there's two of them and you know real nice probably 360 350 360 type range and so um we were on them the next uh well that that afternoon we were on them we found them and uh i put a put it uh and it's it's on our youtube video i think that video but put around him i thought he was done we were all thought he was done everybody looks at him is like what bullet did you use because i'm not using that bullet you know but just i mean he went down and i still remember in the scope just watching him boom fall yeah even on the video if you

you watch the video that bowl is center punch i don't know a bullet performance somehow it was an acubon um and they never i've never had one fail they're my one of my favorites um i don't know i don't know well and he was after so what to say to continue with the story he dropped and we thought he was done we were hugging i was so happy and then all of a sudden the bull's not laying there you know because we stopped for a second looking at it and and so jason's like run run you know i'm running up there as fast as i can and i there's a running theme going on and i do i do run hey people won't think i run okay but i was cameron haynes in it you were and anyway the bull was gone and and he was bleeding and he was coughing up stuff and i mean we hit some we ran in two miles and and he just went like a tank

yeah so we let him we let him you know be and thought well we'll come back in the morning and find him dead track him dead track him down and we tracked him down and he wasn't dead we were tracking tracks we weren't even tracking blood we're tracking tracks and then we had to run him again and you guys finally turned around and barked at us remember yeah yep and you kind of see it on the video but you don't you know you're running two miles with a gun and a pack and all that stuff and you know jason had been hunting a lot that that year and was in pretty good shape and everybody else in pretty good shape and i'd been working in the office like crazy and i was not in good shape i was felt like i was coughing up blood it was like coughing up blood i'm like oh

and i finally caught up i'm thinking we're gonna hit the sos but where's my in reach he barked and and jason grabbed me and put one in him so i grabbed john right there and he's falling at the mouth it was a it was a unfortunate deal because we earned he earned you know it was not like uh we took a a a bad shot and made a bad call and and wounded a bull it wasn't like that it was a perfect shot and it hit him in the chest square it's like and then you know you get to tell him this story and i and i've got a few good friends of mine that they know specific animals that have lived on one lung and when they killed him they got him and the lung was black and tiny shriveled and they and the body adapts and lives on one lung and and it's multiple times and so anyway maybe it hit a rib deflected maybe it deflected off a branch and and went in sideways didn't get the full penetrator i

don't know we you know after john was done done with him it's like you couldn't really tell it's not like when we've gotten him you could make uh heads or tails of exactly what happened so anyway i got him down and i collapsed and was like just trying to breathe hugging the earth seemed like you laid on the ground for 15 minutes i did but then after that you know we just took pictures and taped them out at 361 and for me you know it was like a 400 inch bowl like come on really i was with you know all my buddies and and it was just it was an awesome you know one hunt hunt of my lifetime awesome experience well all right any other stories we want to dive into real quick i've got one last question we can go to to finish it out all right let's do it should we do one last could you have a story anything else we're happy this thing's grinding out we're going to need 14 monsters for you then all

all right here we go so one guy he did say last year i had a bull in a dry desert type unit um that's paul uh it was thick country and really flat hunting was super tough we would see signs and tracks but bulls were super hard to see and possibly nocturnal i don't know if it was unseasonally warm weather or the dry climate that kept them from being more visible and active during the day what suggestions you have in a situation like that how would you go about finding a bull so um the bull the 385 bull southwest desert that we talked about um it we worked that very hard could have hunted the archery rifle ended up with the muzzle hunting in the muzzle worked the rifle really hard and uh the way we did it they weren't they weren't talking they weren't rutting and it was hot 90 degrees plus and so we ran

truck cameras what else you gonna do in the middle of the day you're laying around doing nothing right yeah the elk are not not visible you're not gonna go walk through bedding areas randomly like who does that you know what i mean and you're not glassing them they might be up and down a little bit you could glass them but you're really chilling out we didn't chill out we freaking ran cameras hard we ran knowing it was a tough year and it was brutal and we'd run 35 cameras uh in the middle of the day and we'd check them every day because bulls will move into rut and they need water elk need water in september when they're rutting they're they're freaking the cows go to water the bulls follow the cows and they rut and they're social they're social around water and so we um ran cameras really

hard and this bull the bull i killed moved in september 23rd and uh who knows where it came from but he moved in and he kind of stayed there we would get multiple pictures of him and so it kind of gave us the confidence to keep pounding it had we not done that or had the camera pictures of him he wasn't that vocal he was smart bull and so we uh wouldn't have really pounded that area enough to have killed him it just kept us going kept us going back kept us going back kept us going back and we worked it and ended up getting a visual on him uh glassed him from a rocky knob into a coming into a chaining chained area and then he would go back into the thick stuff really thick stuff and so i got to learn his bugle a little bit heard him bugle one day he bugled one too many times and he was answering me and he just

bugled one too many times we got a beat on where he was and i got up on top of the you know these thick trees and pretty soon he'd come out and ended up shooting with a muzzleloader and he and i don't like muzzleloader i do love muzzleloaders but elk eat muzzleloader rounds like they're grass i mean they can eat the rounds it's not like they got the shock and the foot pounds of energy they got a big slugs like you're putting throwing a rock through them but it's slow you know what i mean it's pushing it through them and so i don't know what it is but they man he was eating these power belts like crazy and um anyway ended up ended up killing him and and uh it was an open site even though you can use scopes here in utah but um that's kind of part of it i think it's going back to like what you were

talking about chris is you do everything you can do everything you can think of and you keep going and you and you grind it out and sometimes it's tougher they're vulnerable something every animal during every season there's something vulnerable whether it's where they feed whether it's the country they're living in that's glassable whether it's rutting noise water the need for water the lack of water makes it to where you should hunt water something that animal is vulnerable and what you got to find where they're vulnerable and and capitalize on that and so anyway we've learned about a lot of elk that year by by working all day long we worked and worked and then we didn't too as we've talked on prior podcasts not limiting yourself to one part of the unit we didn't limit ourselves to part of the

unit we worked a lot a large part of the unit and didn't know where the biggest bull would be found and so treated it as if the biggest book could have been found anywhere even though we like everybody has favorite parts of the unit and so anyway is there anything you guys want to add to that that no i think we're good today call it call it good um let's let's do uh let's do a little something something for cheston our good buddy at phone scope he's a he's a good dude and coming out with some new products of course you're gonna see him inventor the dude is he's you know just coming up with stuff and and now he's figured out how to how to make his inventions and take them to market he must like stuff he must like he he's a lover of money but but he's good at it and and makes some awesome products um you know everybody um has seen our footage especially the footage from last year

from adam's hunt on that 220 buck that he killed if you haven't seen it go to youtube look that up it's a henry's uh hunt from from utah and there's a ton of phone scope footage on there and it's just pristine it's awesome um but but we use the phone scope from from cheston and uh you just hook it right up to your phone and then slip it right onto your spotting scope and get some awesome footage and uh so go visit phonescope.com that's p-h-o-n-e-s-k-o-p-e.com and uh and it's he's got uh you just it's really easy to order choose choose your scope choose your phone and it spits out exactly what you should order so well one other guy we got to really uh send a shout out to is uh the guys up to kent's optics are good friends up there they've been out guiding animal punters and stuff the harrow boys up there

but anyway um if you're looking for any kind of optics as far as vortex night force warovsky zeiss they have it and they can get it to you pretty quick in most circumstances um they also they also carry phone scope stuff too but anyway uh great guys up there give them a call especially if you've got questions i've sent a couple guys up there recently had questions well i'm trying to match this with this and i and what's my best option for a backpack or you know scope or this or what tripod should i be using what's the best tripod uh we've ordered our tripods for these guys and we did it years ago before before you know they well you've known them for years i've known you've done their plumbing so they yeah there you go every time they go to the throne they think of you there you go

as long as it keeps bringing business in yeah do your business we'll take your business

anyway but they're great guys give them a call at 435-257-7014 you can also check them out at kent's optics.com great guys they are they're great guys and we'll be sharing a booth with them at the expo again this next year they had an amazing world-class shed collection uh absolute world-class shed collection and so anyway for those of you that are looking forward to that come visit us we'll be at the expo and throw a little shout out to that and then uh you know i did want to talk about uh red rock precision i killed my bull last year with their gun it's pretty amazing uh it's lightweight um fantastic job i think we could still get you an epic series if you asked about it uh they're dipping them in uh ridge reaper and q i think you think uh q is an option right now and so great opportunity there to to get a red rock precision rifle and it's it's an unbelievable shooting gun it's

just crazy how good it shoots and so we've dealt with uh todd shawley and kurt pilcher for many years known of them they're super good guys um they're building a lot of these guys guns and and people are killing stuff with them so anyway we'd like to thank them for their support and uh and we love their rifles and so don't feel bad about hitting up red rock and uh and getting a gun on order you can check them out at www.redrockprecision.com i guess we could spell that out just guys like me that don't know how to spell r-e-d-r-o-c-k p-r-e-c-i-s-i-o-n.com or call them at 801-391-7840 and uh they'll get a recipe for your gun build as many rounds as you want we usually get a couple hundred if we can and uh you know and then they'll have it on file and be able to build you more rounds or give you the recipe and you can build your own rounds but uh great guys uh great products one of the

the best products out there so i guess that's about it let's call it a day over and out