Speaker 1: Okay, everyone, thanks for joining us. This is the Meat
Speaker 1: Eater podcast. We're recording out of Scottsdale, but not quite um.
Speaker 1: In the in the background, you might hear, if you're lucky,
Speaker 1: a dog bang or barking. That's a that's a that's
Speaker 1: a lion hunting dog owned by Floyd Green, who owns
Speaker 1: and operates Outdoorsman's and wilderness Athlete and then his You
Speaker 1: guys are like, you guys consider yourself a business partners. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I don't think the whole world, you guys, whole
Speaker 1: world is like convoluted to me. But also Chris Denham
Speaker 1: of Western Hunter in for me from does Western Hunter
Speaker 1: television show Western Hunter and Elk Hunter magazines managing editor,
Speaker 1: what do you have change the titles? No, it's publisher. Good,
Speaker 1: Floyd and I do. Actually we we we treat we're
Speaker 1: co publishers as Western Yeah. Oh really chance. These guys,
Speaker 1: these two guys are involved, like and I don't and
Speaker 1: I don't tend to understand where one thing lets up
Speaker 1: and where one thing ends and everything begins with. These
Speaker 1: guys are very involved in a handful of brands and
Speaker 1: companies and lifestyle things that I'm interested in is uh,
Speaker 1: wilderness athletes, UM outdoorsmans like wilderness athletes, like performance hancing
Speaker 1: performance enhancing products, UM outdoorsman's Optics is how you get
Speaker 1: into that, right, optics, backpack systems, accessories and stuff. It
Speaker 1: started you started on the optics business, start out the
Speaker 1: gun business. Well really that's what all doors and begins guns,
Speaker 1: all right, and the at F shouldn't made me realize
Speaker 1: that they'd probably be good to have a second occupation.
Speaker 1: So that's how the optics think came up. That's where
Speaker 1: the optics thinking. And then what has Western hunter has
Speaker 1: been around long time? Yeah? Yeah, basically it's funny em
Speaker 1: Floyd got the optics business. I was a Surowski rep
Speaker 1: and his first real order besides where Steiner was in
Speaker 1: was Rovski and it was my Yeah, that's how we met.
Speaker 1: But the first what I was doing my training with
Speaker 1: the with the rep group. He gave me a little
Speaker 1: bit of training the first day on the job and
Speaker 1: he says, and I want to go to introduce you
Speaker 1: to this this account over here in town. So we
Speaker 1: drove over and he walked in and it was the
Speaker 1: outdoors was Floyd. That day was my first day on
Speaker 1: the job. As a rep and and he'd just gotten
Speaker 1: your first Rowski order. At the time, he had just
Speaker 1: gotten his first Rowski order. And then you gets to
Speaker 1: Lucia start of magazine. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was a
Speaker 1: decade before we started. It started out as a kind
Speaker 1: of a catalog to talk about outdoors and products and
Speaker 1: and you know, we put a couple of articles in
Speaker 1: there and how to how to use this stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: and uh and before you know that, people wanted to
Speaker 1: advertise and they wanted more articles, and then we started
Speaker 1: calling it a matalog and it grew into a magazine
Speaker 1: and and it's been just a work in progress. I
Speaker 1: told I told Floyd the story. But um, like I
Speaker 1: remember so clearly the first time I ever had my
Speaker 1: hands on an issue Western Hunter. So I went up
Speaker 1: and seeing like dude sitting there with binoculars on tripods,
Speaker 1: which I now realized is like I don't like looking
Speaker 1: through binoculars any other way, but sitting there like looking
Speaker 1: on like flat, dry ass desert and be like, what
Speaker 1: in the world are they looking for? That? Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was quite a while ago. Yeah, so then and then
Speaker 1: now Elk Hunter too, and I know Floyd and people
Speaker 1: who watched the show media here probably with no Floyd
Speaker 1: from we did a um we did an episode of
Speaker 1: Floyd about hunting for mountain lions and went out twice.
Speaker 1: Have you had to lay eyes on a mountain lion
Speaker 1: with Floyd? But it cured me forever of what not
Speaker 1: cure me up? It made me antagonistic, almost to the
Speaker 1: point of violence to anyone who wants to tell me
Speaker 1: that there's no challenge in lion hunting. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: telling you what, man, It's like, it's like, that's We'll
Speaker 1: talk about that at another time, but um, I can't
Speaker 1: wait with that with a very deep respective, but it
Speaker 1: goes into the line on particularly the dry ground, the
Speaker 1: no snow lion hunting different. Yeah. Um that that's a
Speaker 1: whole other conversation. Chris So Chris denhim used to But
Speaker 1: you were in the tag like the big game tag business. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I started an application business along with with
Speaker 1: Western Hunter magazine, oh gosh, probably seven eight, nine years ago,
Speaker 1: and they ran a tag service for about probably about
Speaker 1: five or six years. So I finally got burned out
Speaker 1: on that game. Just really it was an evolution, thank
Speaker 1: you know. Elkiner magazine came along and did just it
Speaker 1: just became too many things too to keep up, you know,
Speaker 1: too many balls in the air constantly. Yeah, and it
Speaker 1: really because I took my attention to people's tags was
Speaker 1: just like my own. I was just paranoid. I was
Speaker 1: constantly I couldn't I couldn't handle the stress that the
Speaker 1: application because I was so afraid of making a mistaken
Speaker 1: But I loved it in that it kept me, you know,
Speaker 1: I was constantly researching, you know, looking at different ideas
Speaker 1: and options. So I mean, I really enjoyed it in
Speaker 1: that respect. But but it is a stressful business. So
Speaker 1: just just to get some background what exactly we're talk about.
Speaker 1: Were talking about tags, you guys, your people say like
Speaker 1: play the tag game or tags or you know, applying
Speaker 1: is most dates, all states in the West and more
Speaker 1: and more states in the East allocate some number of
Speaker 1: big game permits to through lotteries to applicants. Right, So
Speaker 1: whether it's you know, Michigan, Elk, much of Michigan Bear,
Speaker 1: some areas for turkeys, you know, like Kentucky, Yellow, Pennsylvaniall
Speaker 1: Loose ye yep, moose and Maine and then everywhere in
Speaker 1: the West, in some states all big game tags. Virtually
Speaker 1: all big game tags are awarded through some sort of
Speaker 1: lottery where on a designated date, usually late winter, right,
Speaker 1: you fill out an application and sending some amount of money.
Speaker 1: It varies by state, and we'll talk about that. And
Speaker 1: you're throwing your name in the hat to get to
Speaker 1: get a tag, and then they do a drawing and
Speaker 1: you find out whether or not you're going hunting. And
Speaker 1: we get so many questions, like like through the show
Speaker 1: and other things, that's so many questions from people who
Speaker 1: are always just trying to make sense of this whole system.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm newly familiar to it because when I
Speaker 1: like everywhere, ever, when I lived in Montana, I was
Speaker 1: hunt like the over the counter stuff. But more and
Speaker 1: more you realize that the real dream hunts, you know,
Speaker 1: like the great stuff you're gonna go do is is uh,
Speaker 1: you gotta play the system. I mean, you gotta like
Speaker 1: jump in there and try to figure it out. And
Speaker 1: it's hard, I think for people to match it to
Speaker 1: like whatever your budget might be or what your interests are,
Speaker 1: so you got as much experience and this kind of
Speaker 1: thing is anybody I know? So I kind of wanted
Speaker 1: to run through sort of how does a guy who
Speaker 1: knows that at some point right he's gonna go out
Speaker 1: and do like a hunt, Like how do you begin
Speaker 1: even thinking about this kind of stuff? And like where
Speaker 1: where does a person spending money? Where? How much morneing
Speaker 1: does it cost? Like how do you you know? What's
Speaker 1: the tag plan? You know? The the first thing that
Speaker 1: guy needs to do is starting the research end, you know,
Speaker 1: And there's there's resources out there. Um, you know, traditionally
Speaker 1: it was like hunt Ful Eastman's that all had you know,
Speaker 1: information on different units, what the premier units were. But
Speaker 1: then now you've got a lot of online stuff. Come on,
Speaker 1: there's one hour right now called go hunt dot com.
Speaker 1: They just came out this year, um, and they've got
Speaker 1: some It's an incredible resource with maps. I mean, everything
Speaker 1: you'd want to know about a unit, about a state,
Speaker 1: about a species is all right there. You can break
Speaker 1: it down which which units have archery tags, which units
Speaker 1: have rifle tags. They just they've only been live about
Speaker 1: ninety days and really it's an impressive program you've got.
Speaker 1: But there's a lot of resources online. That Hunter's trailhead
Speaker 1: that you said to you and I've talked about that
Speaker 1: it's got all your your point points, what how many
Speaker 1: points it might take to draw certain areas. But the
Speaker 1: first thing I guy gotta do is allocate a budget.
Speaker 1: And it because it is it really does come down
Speaker 1: to money. You've got to spend some money. You told me,
Speaker 1: like just like when you when you get into the
Speaker 1: money thing. I had a conversation with you a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago. We're tom about whether or not you
Speaker 1: could ever draw a big horn tag, and you had
Speaker 1: said something to me, if you can clarify your own point,
Speaker 1: you said something to me to the effect of, if
Speaker 1: a guy comes to me and he's in his I
Speaker 1: can't remember his late forties, early fifties and says he
Speaker 1: wants to start trying to get a big horn tag,
Speaker 1: you tell him just take all that money now and
Speaker 1: go up to a last and go on a dollar
Speaker 1: sheep hunt, because you're gonna want to up spend that
Speaker 1: much anyways, and you're not gonna get It's true, honestly,
Speaker 1: and I've never actually done the math, but I think
Speaker 1: I think it might it might actually be accurate. If
Speaker 1: you took all the money you were going to spend on,
Speaker 1: you know, mandatory hunting licenses and preference points. Uh, it
Speaker 1: took all that money and went and bought you know,
Speaker 1: because it could be up to you're gonna be in
Speaker 1: the two thousand range for that dollars for a sheep
Speaker 1: for sheep applications, you could. I think if you went
Speaker 1: down and bought two thousand dollars worth the lottery tickets,
Speaker 1: you probably stand a better chance of winning a million
Speaker 1: dollars in the lottery. Then you do a drawing a
Speaker 1: sheep tag, you win a million dollars, and then you
Speaker 1: go buy all those tags, you know, deals. It's a
Speaker 1: it's a shame that that. It's it's a shame. It's
Speaker 1: just the reality of what we live in nowadays is
Speaker 1: that these tags are extremely rare and everybody knows about them.
Speaker 1: For the most part. There's a lot of resources and
Speaker 1: then there's just a lot of people applying for him,
Speaker 1: and everybody wants a chance. Yeah. Actually, I think a
Speaker 1: lot of the raffles that states have nowadays have better
Speaker 1: odds sometimes than there than the Actually, remember you're saying
Speaker 1: to me that the Colorado raffle, Like if a bighorn
Speaker 1: raffle tag in Colorado, the money it costs you to
Speaker 1: apply for a sheet tag in Colorado. If you spend
Speaker 1: that money on raffle tickets, you you get to where
Speaker 1: you have as good odds, and if you spend like
Speaker 1: a little bit extra, you'd have more better odds than
Speaker 1: you do in the regular draw absolutely, you know, especially
Speaker 1: in those you know, four or five years ago. Unfortunatelybody
Speaker 1: kind of figured this out too, is it. You know
Speaker 1: there was three or fourth and tickets getting sold for
Speaker 1: that raffle tag. If you went't spent fifteen hundred bucks,
Speaker 1: you can get your odds up to five or six percent,
Speaker 1: seven percent where's your odds? And then drawing, you know,
Speaker 1: we're you know, down in the half percent to one percent.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's literally twenty times better odds for you know,
Speaker 1: twenty times more money. But at least you can't the
Speaker 1: one thing we can't buy his time. So if you
Speaker 1: can improve your odds by you know, twenty fold, you know,
Speaker 1: and you've got the resources and you know it was
Speaker 1: a wise move at the time, and you can craft me.
Speaker 1: But I think that a guy that writes for you guys,
Speaker 1: Mike um like to plan do plan right. He did
Speaker 1: that and one of those tags. He's the Colorado guy Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's sawing about mule deer in Colorado, so yeah, so county.
Speaker 1: And he drew big one big corn tag. He want
Speaker 1: to stay wide, to stay wide and rocking mountain, big
Speaker 1: horn tag and tremendous sheet yeah yeah, yeah, tremendous ramad
Speaker 1: like eleven thousand feet in October is a pretty epic story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the lure of that stuff, Like what's so cool about
Speaker 1: the limited draw things? Like the first limited draw teg
Speaker 1: I re drew was a turkey limited draw, a tag
Speaker 1: in the area that that was the first year they
Speaker 1: ever allowed turkey hunting there. There's this place we used
Speaker 1: to always hunt black bears, and I was like, man,
Speaker 1: there's a ton of turkeys around here, but you couldn't
Speaker 1: hunt them. Then one year, I just like get the
Speaker 1: turkey book and looking they're given occumra what it was
Speaker 1: twenty tags or fifteen tags this giant part of northwest Montana,
Speaker 1: and drew it and went out there, and like people
Speaker 1: are always talking about, yeah, these animals have never heard
Speaker 1: a call. I can guarantee those birds never heard a
Speaker 1: call because I was like the first hunt to occur there.
Speaker 1: I drew that tag a number of times and it
Speaker 1: was amazing. And it's like everybody dreams about getting these
Speaker 1: situations that there's no other dudes around, you know, or
Speaker 1: it's just like where it's like a pure hunt. You know,
Speaker 1: you're just like you're hunting animals that aren't you're you're
Speaker 1: not You're hunting animals that are doing something more than
Speaker 1: just responding to other hunters. And certainly you can achieve that,
Speaker 1: you know, with just like over the counter tags, But
Speaker 1: when you start getting into the into the drawing units
Speaker 1: is when I mean you get like just the magical,
Speaker 1: magical spots that is the best. But you know, that's
Speaker 1: the thing about the draws is it does put you
Speaker 1: into a hunt where you're gonna have a lot less
Speaker 1: competition for people, um and and then nowadays, honestly that's
Speaker 1: really where the magic is for those hunts, because you know,
Speaker 1: even in Arizona, you know, we were Floyd and I've
Speaker 1: been talking about it, how even are some of our
Speaker 1: best elk units, in our best deer units are getting
Speaker 1: pretty much overrun. I mean, there's just because hunters are
Speaker 1: becoming so much more efficient. You know, we're hunting, you
Speaker 1: might have two or three buddies out there with you
Speaker 1: we've all got really good gear. Where a lot more
Speaker 1: committed than we used to be. I mean it used
Speaker 1: to be like an archery ol kunt in Arizona. If
Speaker 1: you were out there on the weekends, you'd see people.
Speaker 1: If you're out there on Wednesday, you were by yourself. Nowadays,
Speaker 1: everybody's out there for the entire season. You know, they're
Speaker 1: just hunted, like the whole vacation they burned. You feel
Speaker 1: like you've noticed that in your life, Oh, absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 1: I remember when the first time I ever drew an
Speaker 1: archieolk tag. It was in six A, which is one
Speaker 1: of our biggest units. Here's you know, more out tags.
Speaker 1: And I it was the first time I ever elk
Speaker 1: kind And I'm from born and raised in southern Arizona,
Speaker 1: so I didn't even know anything about the woods. Uh
Speaker 1: and uh Anyways, I it was a Wednesday, It was
Speaker 1: a Wednesday in a hunting and on a Thursday, and
Speaker 1: I got lost before GPS is I got lost, I
Speaker 1: mean lost, bad lost. But you know your Arizona, you
Speaker 1: can only walk two miles before you get hit another
Speaker 1: road in uh. But I walked all freaking day before
Speaker 1: I finally ran into somebody in a truck, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean during huts like the woods having want to
Speaker 1: you know, nowadays you just stand there and listen. You'll
Speaker 1: hear the roads, you know, because there'll be you can
Speaker 1: hear trucks racing all through them. It's like we're saying,
Speaker 1: like in a unit, same number of tags is always.
Speaker 1: It just feels different now, it just feels totally different. Yeah,
Speaker 1: everybody's just hunting longer, They're hunting harder. You know, they're
Speaker 1: more committed because you're all reading Western Hunter. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of and the friends thing, right, I mean, everybody
Speaker 1: goes out there with the team now. And I felt
Speaker 1: like I even noticed it in Unit ten. I'm the
Speaker 1: only guy there three years and it might have been
Speaker 1: just this one particular glass and now, but I felt
Speaker 1: like the first year I was there, I felt like, Wow,
Speaker 1: I got this great glass and knob and like there's
Speaker 1: no boot tracks up here, Like there's really no sign
Speaker 1: and like, man, I'm looking at a lot of ELK.
Speaker 1: Great two years later or two calendar years, but it
Speaker 1: was the third season I got it there. I hike
Speaker 1: up there when with a guy and there's already three
Speaker 1: guys there, and then as it's getting line. I want
Speaker 1: to say, like six guys showed up, and I mean
Speaker 1: it was like this whole canyon room was covered up
Speaker 1: with people with I mean there was a hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars worth of optics sitting up there, you know. And
Speaker 1: I'm looking at my guy like, well, those guys are
Speaker 1: not hunting. They all have dudes down there hunting. You
Speaker 1: and I need to leave because it's just you and I.
Speaker 1: So I can't tell you to go somewhere, you know.
Speaker 1: So you know, in all of man years go, I
Speaker 1: can remember we would be up there glass and people
Speaker 1: walking around out there, and you'd see that another hunter
Speaker 1: and you'd look him over read place to look at
Speaker 1: his path, and you look at me. If you saw
Speaker 1: a tripod, you think this guy's a threat. And then
Speaker 1: you see a guy walking there's no trick pod. You
Speaker 1: the guy. He's just taking his rifle for a hike.
Speaker 1: You know. It's just the intensity and the level and
Speaker 1: the skill set that these guys have these days is
Speaker 1: dramatically changed. It really is. It's a funny race. You know,
Speaker 1: trail cameras, you know, I mean there's trail cameras everywhere.
Speaker 1: You know, the big bulls the big bucks there are
Speaker 1: all there's somebody's got a picture of almost all of them.
Speaker 1: They all think they're gonna kill that one, you know.
Speaker 1: So they got all their buddies out there looking for
Speaker 1: that bull. Everybody bull's got a name. You know. It's
Speaker 1: a you know, not to be a downer, but it
Speaker 1: is a little frustrating. Yeah. I remember someone saying that, Um,
Speaker 1: they walked up to a a water hole here somewhere
Speaker 1: in Arizona. It's kind of like a dozen trail cans
Speaker 1: or something. Now, Floydnead floydne had a strip tag a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago, and we were out there and
Speaker 1: when he says strip, to tell me what you mean
Speaker 1: by it's Arizona Strip, but up north of the Grand Canyon,
Speaker 1: and it's it is the It as a density, it's
Speaker 1: got more huge non typical meal deer than any other
Speaker 1: place on Earth. It's you know, it's just an amazing place.
Speaker 1: Lots of huge year The genetics are phenomenal. And we
Speaker 1: were there in a Floyd drew in a really tough year.
Speaker 1: I mean it was it had a really dry spring,
Speaker 1: dry summer in the Antler development just wasn't very good.
Speaker 1: There was one buck we had found. But let me
Speaker 1: let me pould you again, because this is an interesting
Speaker 1: point that I never I had never even heard of
Speaker 1: this till until we were talking earlier today. If you
Speaker 1: guys get a drought or like a dry spell in
Speaker 1: the right period of time, you see that in the
Speaker 1: antlers of the animals, no doubt. Yeah, if it's if
Speaker 1: you don't get the rain right, you know, right before
Speaker 1: antlers drop, and then certainly all the way through that
Speaker 1: growth phase, if there's not green stuff growing, then you know,
Speaker 1: the the elk are really susceptible to it. But then
Speaker 1: up on the strip it's a it's a desert, it's
Speaker 1: a high desert up there. And if they don't get
Speaker 1: it up there, and if they've got a late spring,
Speaker 1: it's cold and they don't get any green up early.
Speaker 1: You know, those bucks just don't put on the development.
Speaker 1: I mean, it could be dramatic, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, I just never you know, coming from
Speaker 1: I was living the North, you just never think of
Speaker 1: water as a limiting factor. So anyways, so so Floyd
Speaker 1: drew on a dry year. Right before we hear the
Speaker 1: rest of that story, let's take a quick break. So
Speaker 1: anyways where we there was one particular buck that Floyd
Speaker 1: passed on the third day. Third day, of course, I'm Senegal.
Speaker 1: We need to shoot this duer. We need to shoot
Speaker 1: this dude. We need Floyd's like no ideverybody will do better.
Speaker 1: And Chris is I need to tell you find it.
Speaker 1: Chris is complained about hunting with you that you never
Speaker 1: want to shoot you. You'd just like to go and
Speaker 1: look around. It's bad. We're looking at this bunk. I
Speaker 1: thinking this box typical, you know. And he's got one
Speaker 1: little he's got one little point that's sticking out. So
Speaker 1: we call the middle Finger because his points to stick
Speaker 1: not like this. And uh so we find middle Finger
Speaker 1: coming off this ridge and we know he's gonna hit
Speaker 1: this water hole. He's got doze and his doz has
Speaker 1: just got their heads down. They're gonna hit this water hole.
Speaker 1: So we bust around the other side. It's gonna drop
Speaker 1: into a hole. We're not gonna be able to see him.
Speaker 1: So we go right where we can see this this
Speaker 1: water tank and it was a game of fish catchment.
Speaker 1: Uh that was that surrounded by pipe and uh it's
Speaker 1: a drinker there and then that drinker feeds into a
Speaker 1: cattle drinker. Well, we're sure he's gonna come out to
Speaker 1: the cattle drinker is closer that way. So we get
Speaker 1: over there and we get set up and it's just
Speaker 1: gray light. I mean, the sun's just set. But Arizona,
Speaker 1: you got thirty more minutes, and we knew a bunch
Speaker 1: of We saw a bunch of does coming off behind us,
Speaker 1: and we know they're gonna hit this game and fish
Speaker 1: water and they start jumping the fence into this game
Speaker 1: and fish thing and the flashes they are going off
Speaker 1: of the camera. I mean, it was like Britney Spears
Speaker 1: just showed up kidding cameras and every one of them
Speaker 1: got a couple of minute delay. It looked like firefloor. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just this is in perfect vision from is it Britney Spears?
Speaker 1: And you know what I mean, it's just there. It
Speaker 1: was amazing how many cameras around that water hole, and
Speaker 1: we could see seven or eight. We didn't want to
Speaker 1: walk down to the water, so we were just lasting.
Speaker 1: I'm seeing them on these you could see seven or
Speaker 1: eight of them. They were everywhere on that water and
Speaker 1: this and this water from the nearest gas station had
Speaker 1: to be three hours three hours to the nearest gas station.
Speaker 1: You know, that's how remote this place was. And there's
Speaker 1: that many cameras out there. See that. That's like just
Speaker 1: to bring us around where we're not what we're talking about,
Speaker 1: but the bringing around the main stuff that I'm trying
Speaker 1: to talk about is that's the kind of thing where
Speaker 1: when you're looking at these applications and you're gonna applying
Speaker 1: for stuff, that's the kind of thing you don't know,
Speaker 1: you know. And so there's like, for instance, I drew
Speaker 1: a musk like I drew a muskox. I had a
Speaker 1: muskox tag this year that I went and hunted on,
Speaker 1: But I drew the same tag on New Nevak Island
Speaker 1: in Alaska in two thousand ten. I think I had
Speaker 1: the tag I just put in, like, oh, I go
Speaker 1: hunt muskox, put in a unit knowing nothing about it, okay,
Speaker 1: and then later learn that that unit, by law, which
Speaker 1: it says nothing about this in the REGs, but that
Speaker 1: unit by law, you have to hire a transporter or
Speaker 1: guide because the only place to land on New Nevak
Speaker 1: Island is in the town of mccoriak. In the town
Speaker 1: of mccoriak, happens to be a native corporation is chupa Eskimo.
Speaker 1: You can't get on the island without landing on their land,
Speaker 1: and so they have a thing that you're gonna hunt
Speaker 1: out of there. You gotta hire one of them as
Speaker 1: a guide. So you put in your thing thinking like
Speaker 1: oh yeah, you know, you look at the map of
Speaker 1: the island, it's all federal land. You're like sweet public land,
Speaker 1: Muskox hunt. But then the minute you start, you drawn
Speaker 1: the tag and you're like, not quite, man, it's a
Speaker 1: little more complicated that. In fact, you need a few
Speaker 1: more thousand dollars if you're gonna do this thing. It's
Speaker 1: like hard to know that kind of stuff. And so
Speaker 1: it kind of comes around, like we're talking about with
Speaker 1: Chris being like, uh, doing a tag services and help
Speaker 1: people wade through all this stuff. And so often people
Speaker 1: that do the permit draw game, there's some units people want.
Speaker 1: They're just gonna kill. You have the potential to kill
Speaker 1: like a giant animal. Personally, I'll trying to look as
Speaker 1: much as that's something i'm interested in. Like when I
Speaker 1: do my Montana application, I always put in like a
Speaker 1: unit I'll never be hunted, and I know it's like
Speaker 1: something they want to kill a big mule here, and
Speaker 1: there's a big multar unit Montana. I put that down.
Speaker 1: At other times when I'm doing like a mountain goat unite,
Speaker 1: I don't really care. Like, you know, if I had
Speaker 1: like a record book mountain goo It's not gonna be
Speaker 1: like my potential record. But muscos, this is not something
Speaker 1: that's gonna come up in conversation very often. When I'm
Speaker 1: picking a mountago at unit, I'm thinking of where is
Speaker 1: it gonna be the most fun to hunt, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean like where is the best chance of seeing
Speaker 1: no other person around? You know, So there's these different
Speaker 1: little things you're trying to weigh out. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that would be my number one piece of advice to
Speaker 1: two serious hunters when it comes the application game. Is
Speaker 1: pick out areas that you you know that have those
Speaker 1: dream hunts. You know, to seventy in Montana from meal deer,
Speaker 1: you know, and in to thirty one in Nevada from
Speaker 1: meal deer, the Henrias and Aria in in Utah. There's
Speaker 1: a strip in Arizona, but really that kind of the
Speaker 1: big meal deer around those are the big Yeah, we're
Speaker 1: kind of missed the Ponts agout and of course half
Speaker 1: of Colorado. But but but look for areas that you
Speaker 1: know putting for those dream hunts. But look for areas
Speaker 1: where you think you can draw a tag if you
Speaker 1: can come out west or if you live out west
Speaker 1: and hunt every year or every other year. Look for
Speaker 1: those areas that you could hunt every year every other year,
Speaker 1: because I really do believe that a guy like Colorado
Speaker 1: is a classic. There's there's been a Buda Crocket deer
Speaker 1: killed in every county in Colorado. I mean, there are
Speaker 1: some units that are far better than others, certainly for
Speaker 1: overall quality, but everyone of them has the potential to
Speaker 1: produce a monster. And if a hunter would pick a
Speaker 1: unit in Colorado that he can hunt every year or
Speaker 1: every other year and come out and do that, he
Speaker 1: will kill a monster buck long before the next guy
Speaker 1: ever draws, you know, one of the premier units. Yeah,
Speaker 1: before you accumulate you're like eighteen points, at which point
Speaker 1: you've never even for eighteen years, you don't even know
Speaker 1: what the hell you're doing. It's really like, you just
Speaker 1: need to know what your goal is, because if your
Speaker 1: goal is like whatever it is, that one nine or
Speaker 1: just a big mule here that looks big to you.
Speaker 1: You don't need to go to the Henry's or the
Speaker 1: Kaibab to do that, Like you're saying, you can go
Speaker 1: to probably half of Wyoming and you know, half of Colorado.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've seen it, you know, guy Nail Cunters.
Speaker 1: I mean, everyone of them thinks they want to kill
Speaker 1: a monster, and then you show him a three ten bowl,
Speaker 1: three twenty bowl, and all of a sudden, their whole
Speaker 1: idea of a monster just got redefined because that bowl
Speaker 1: is a monster. You know, they actually get one in
Speaker 1: front of him. Oh no, where I got it. We
Speaker 1: would like pass on a five point the first day
Speaker 1: and then on the second day four point. I guess
Speaker 1: kind of like in Arizona. Might be a little different
Speaker 1: out but I think way too many guys are looking
Speaker 1: for what you know, the magic hunt in the magic draw,
Speaker 1: the magic unit and not realizing they're trying. Are forgetting
Speaker 1: the fact that hunting skills are something are only acquired
Speaker 1: through experience. You're not gonna get it sitting you know,
Speaker 1: you can read Western Hunter Magazine all you want, you know,
Speaker 1: I'd love to think you could learn everything you need
Speaker 1: to learn, but you can. You guys want to give
Speaker 1: GPS coordinates in there. No, we don't even give units.
Speaker 1: We don't even talk about units. But I always feel
Speaker 1: like I always feel like calling you to ask you
Speaker 1: where some of these articles happen. But I feel it
Speaker 1: could be unfair. I might tell you if you put
Speaker 1: it on the podcast. You know we were talking about Uh,
Speaker 1: I'm addressed, and the listener not you. Guys. There's like
Speaker 1: long shot units, and then there's like within the draw spectrum. Okay,
Speaker 1: you have long shot units where you might have a
Speaker 1: half percent, quarter whatever chance to draw the tag, and
Speaker 1: then you have something that you'll hear the term and
Speaker 1: undersubscribed unit. Undersubscribed units where your States Fishing Game Agency says,
Speaker 1: let's they say, okay, where you have about one elk
Speaker 1: tags in this area. But traditionally only guys ever even
Speaker 1: put in right. So it's we'll say it's like a
Speaker 1: guaranteed draw, meaning theoretically you could not get it if
Speaker 1: if interest suddenly spike, but just every year, not enough
Speaker 1: people do. But there's no over the counter option, so
Speaker 1: if you don't hit the deadline and fill out your application,
Speaker 1: you won't get the tag. Some states will sell those
Speaker 1: leftovers where they call the surplus. They'll sell them on
Speaker 1: a first come, first served basis. Some states that's just it.
Speaker 1: It's like if you don't put in, you don't get it.
Speaker 1: And so a lot of times you hear of a
Speaker 1: guy it'll be summertime. This happens to me all the time.
Speaker 1: You hear from some guy in June or Joe is
Speaker 1: gonna go elk hunt in this year. And you always
Speaker 1: want to be like, well, you already like you already
Speaker 1: missed out of the state's opportunities in the States because
Speaker 1: just didn't do your thing on time. It's not that
Speaker 1: you can't go if you put it in, because you
Speaker 1: can't like you're saying you can go hunt. You can
Speaker 1: go hunt elk in Colorado every year. These thing when
Speaker 1: when when you and I when Chris, when you and
Speaker 1: I have spoken about hunting Arizona, your feelings about Arizona,
Speaker 1: or like hunt couster in Arizona, because you can spend
Speaker 1: all this time trying to get a muleder tag in Arizona. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: you can go on a deer hunt every year every year.
Speaker 1: I mean at the the unit with the unit you
Speaker 1: and I both had this year were success on the draw.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean there's we have probably ten or
Speaker 1: twelve couster units every year. They go undersubscribed on the
Speaker 1: first and second choice. You mean you could draw him
Speaker 1: on a third choice. You could hunt the thing every
Speaker 1: year every year. Yeah, So like play, like doing tags
Speaker 1: and lottery draws. It's not just it's not just about
Speaker 1: that year in eighteen years or whatever, gonna get this
Speaker 1: chance to go like a big one. It's also just
Speaker 1: like are you able to hunt or not just go
Speaker 1: hunting because I I've just I've watched so many guys
Speaker 1: over the years that they're they're hunting skills just basically
Speaker 1: deteriorate because they're sitting around waiting for a magical tag
Speaker 1: that may or may never come, you know, and even
Speaker 1: the best units, even that, you know, even the strip,
Speaker 1: as good as that is and as much hard work
Speaker 1: as everybody puts into that, the success on the hunt
Speaker 1: each year is only around So guys, wait, literally, you know,
Speaker 1: a hunter's lifetime for a tag, and only a little
Speaker 1: better than half of those hunters actually kill a deer,
Speaker 1: And those those that kill a deer, maybe half of
Speaker 1: them kill a deer. That they dreamed of. So sev
Speaker 1: of the people that draw that tag go away in
Speaker 1: some sense of that. We're disappointed, but you think a
Speaker 1: lot of them don't show up. No, I go some
Speaker 1: of those every year because you know, with an organization
Speaker 1: I work with the Outdoor Experience for All where people
Speaker 1: can donate tags to us if they can't come. Uh,
Speaker 1: it usually runs two to five percent. You know, for drugs.
Speaker 1: There really are guys that are out there hunting that
Speaker 1: are not just can't make it for one reason or another.
Speaker 1: You know, whether it's you know, they just had a
Speaker 1: new baby in the house, or you know, their daughter
Speaker 1: decided to get married right in the middle hunting season,
Speaker 1: or some travesty like that. But yeah, it does happen.
Speaker 1: The guys just don't even show up, you know. And
Speaker 1: you had and didn't kill one, right, No, we never
Speaker 1: shot twice twice do table lifetime. So what happens when
Speaker 1: you go at what happens when you go up there?
Speaker 1: You look at a lot of deer, then you could
Speaker 1: fly the area that yeah, fluid along. I've looked at
Speaker 1: a lot of big deer. I've been involved with some
Speaker 1: big deer that have been taken up there. The deer
Speaker 1: we passed, you know, a hundred ninety bug. But when
Speaker 1: you go up there, it's a special place to me,
Speaker 1: and you know, in hindsight, I would have probably shot
Speaker 1: the hundred ninety in deer, but you never know when
Speaker 1: you might see a two forty type deer. That year
Speaker 1: was particularly there was a few deer shot in that category,
Speaker 1: but very limited. Jess onlines up there some not a
Speaker 1: whole bunch, not a whole bunch, but when you flew it,
Speaker 1: you flew it looking for mule deer right and saw
Speaker 1: lots of things. Well, actually I went up there with
Speaker 1: knowing there was five larger deer there and saw three
Speaker 1: deer that would break to two thirty mark. So when
Speaker 1: you know they're there and you know the place says
Speaker 1: that kind of genetic capability, it's really hard for me
Speaker 1: to shoot a smaller deer. And I don't, you know,
Speaker 1: Chris like Chris and I actually fun with it, but
Speaker 1: I really don't ever feel like I need to shoot anything,
Speaker 1: and I you know, I kind of enjoyed that. It's uh,
Speaker 1: I think we've about gave Nate and anders On that hunt.
Speaker 1: To me, it's so refreshing. Actually, did you know to
Speaker 1: hear you say that, you know that you can just
Speaker 1: go out there and just have a great time was
Speaker 1: such high stakes and come away with no deer and
Speaker 1: be like that was awesome. We certainly get to hunt
Speaker 1: the whole hunt. I'm always teaching that was nine days,
Speaker 1: ten days todays, not hunt at all other than the
Speaker 1: mental aspect. But the country for the most parts just
Speaker 1: not It's not the challenge. I mean, it's not a
Speaker 1: lot of It's not like a lot of up and
Speaker 1: down stage and secret country. You just you're pounded and pounded,
Speaker 1: your tires take a beating. But you know, you know,
Speaker 1: I make fun of flu because they tease them about
Speaker 1: not shooting that deer, but kind of think about all
Speaker 1: the stories we would have missed out on the storytelling
Speaker 1: time we had. It would have it would have been
Speaker 1: almost a travesty if we shot that deer on the
Speaker 1: third day, the lost six and six days or to
Speaker 1: last one thing that I've I've found myself doing and
Speaker 1: I never did like I only Chris, I've known you
Speaker 1: the whole time. I've done it only for a handful
Speaker 1: of years. Started applying for tags and states where I
Speaker 1: don't have like deep connections. Okay, so I've always done
Speaker 1: you know, I lived in Montana, have have family, they're
Speaker 1: still have family in Alaska. So I've always done like
Speaker 1: the Montana and Alaska draws, and it was kind of
Speaker 1: like hunting my home ground, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I won't even the last few years beginn applying for
Speaker 1: states where I don't even where. I'll have to figure
Speaker 1: it out once. I if I draw a tech you
Speaker 1: know where I just don't know what's going on. But no,
Speaker 1: I pretty much do virtually all Western states. And I
Speaker 1: have a way where I sort of think under your
Speaker 1: guidance a little bit. I think if some as being
Speaker 1: just start now and accumulate points and then maybe someday
Speaker 1: when you're an old man, you'll have like these amazing trips,
Speaker 1: you know. And in the other states you think of
Speaker 1: as like your opportunity states that you're just gonna go
Speaker 1: and do so, like I have, like from from my understanding,
Speaker 1: if I'm right, like Nevada, you're just playing a long game.
Speaker 1: It's a long wait. Arizona can be a long wait
Speaker 1: for a lot of stuff. At least Arizona we have
Speaker 1: we have a Maxi bonus point pool, so which how
Speaker 1: are you gonna get you can't get there? Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was meal there. It sucks. You know, if you hunt
Speaker 1: the strip, if if you know, if somebody's listening right
Speaker 1: now and they haven't ever applied for the strip in
Speaker 1: you're a nonresident, don't don't even waste your time. You
Speaker 1: literally never draw it in your entire life. Because what
Speaker 1: percent of those tags go to the max point holder
Speaker 1: go to the maximonus point holders and how many points
Speaker 1: those guys have right now? I think it's seventeen or so.
Speaker 1: But the biggest problem for non residents is ten percent.
Speaker 1: We have a ten percent maximum for non residents, so
Speaker 1: there's the of the tags go to the maxi bonus
Speaker 1: point pool. Only ten percent of the total tags can
Speaker 1: be non residents. So a lot of nonresidents when we
Speaker 1: started the bonus point system years ago, they started applying
Speaker 1: back then, so there's a very large number of non
Speaker 1: residents sitting in the maximonus point pool. So by the
Speaker 1: time the tent is reached, the ten percent already reached.
Speaker 1: So technically a nonresident doesn't even have a chance unless
Speaker 1: he's in the maximonus point pool. I mean, you can
Speaker 1: be two points off you can be an applying for
Speaker 1: the last sixteen years, you probably still will not draw
Speaker 1: that in your lifetime, considering the fact that you're probably
Speaker 1: already in your mid forties. You know, if you've got
Speaker 1: that many points, you know in your lifetime you're hunting lifetime.
Speaker 1: We're talking in years. So what do you think, like
Speaker 1: getting away from the the practical matter of getting points,
Speaker 1: what in't your opinion is sort of the like the
Speaker 1: cultural effect of that system is that area like like
Speaker 1: like take there, we're talking about the strip area that
Speaker 1: is that area is so limited in water and stuff
Speaker 1: that you can't you couldn't just start issuing over the
Speaker 1: counter tags for any book. Would you damage the resource?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, destroy it up there? Which it was exactly
Speaker 1: why we're in the predicament we're in right now where
Speaker 1: there's a lot of speculation. Why will have a ton
Speaker 1: of input on this, But there was a time in
Speaker 1: the fifties and the sixties when the strip was over
Speaker 1: the counter. They had a huge number of deer up there.
Speaker 1: It had a very large number of deer. And then
Speaker 1: you know it's a combination of effects of over hunting.
Speaker 1: There's probably some predation, But back then I'm probably. I'm
Speaker 1: guessing they probably killed the snot out of predators back then,
Speaker 1: so it's just over hunting. Um. They knocked the dear
Speaker 1: population down to a point where Game of Fish had
Speaker 1: to come in and start setting a tag quota. But
Speaker 1: that population had been suppressed to the point where it's
Speaker 1: never been able to recover the areas. Yeah, so that
Speaker 1: they actually suppressed it to the point where predators then
Speaker 1: did become a problem. You know, once a prey base
Speaker 1: gets so yeah, bounced back and get above that level
Speaker 1: where it where the predators consumed so many that it's
Speaker 1: holding the population down. Yeah, and I can see that.
Speaker 1: But they're not able to swamp the predators with just
Speaker 1: keep all fed. Yeah, they can't. They can't drop enough bonds,
Speaker 1: you know, to keep all the predators fed. And the
Speaker 1: strip I mean now it's sixty five tags for the strip,
Speaker 1: and the strip is I don't know how many million
Speaker 1: square miles tanks. So yeah, so if you just said,
Speaker 1: all right, we're gonna do just the opportunity, it hadn't
Speaker 1: be they ain't Joe below could go buy a tank
Speaker 1: for the area. You feasibly just just killing be here,
Speaker 1: kill everybuck. No, there's just not a chance you see it.
Speaker 1: It's so obviously true. It's like like every were talking
Speaker 1: about big arms. I think you and I had this
Speaker 1: conversation before, like there's not a thousand big oaring tags
Speaker 1: in the country. No, not now, No, I'd think to
Speaker 1: know how many thousands of people apply for less than
Speaker 1: thousands big horn tags, but you could. Yeah, it's if
Speaker 1: you just were to give out big oaring tags, you'd
Speaker 1: issue hundreds of thousands of more tags. And there are
Speaker 1: big horn cheap and exist and literally that's one thing
Speaker 1: people ask me all the time. Sometimes people will take
Speaker 1: for granted and I think that people who have no
Speaker 1: desire to like to go shoot a deer should go
Speaker 1: shoot a deer or so I don't I don't understand
Speaker 1: the people. I was like, do you think everybody should
Speaker 1: go kill a deer or else you shouldn't eat any meat? Like, well,
Speaker 1: one problem off toime of my head is we would
Speaker 1: immediately have a two hundred million deer deficit if everyone
Speaker 1: in this country went out and shot a deer. It's actually,
Speaker 1: you know, I was looking and you know a buddy
Speaker 1: years Joe Rogan. You know, he's on the cover of
Speaker 1: What's Peterson's hunting is talking about the new the phenomena,
Speaker 1: you know, the hipster hunting movement, you know, and and
Speaker 1: how that's you know, I wonder at times, just what
Speaker 1: kind of effect is they going to have in states
Speaker 1: where you have you know, over the counter tags that's
Speaker 1: gonna almost have to you know, when you look into
Speaker 1: you know, Oregon and and you know California's got a
Speaker 1: lot of private land, but you know Idaho where you've
Speaker 1: got it over the counter tags, uh in you know,
Speaker 1: large parts in Montana. You know, if all these people
Speaker 1: do go out and start hunting, you know, we all
Speaker 1: think that's a wonderful thing, but at some point I'm wondering,
Speaker 1: how wonderful is it. That's that's my my brother. He
Speaker 1: like when people talk about hunary cruitment, he can't stay
Speaker 1: in the idea of it, you know, but he's not
Speaker 1: looking at it from I mean, it's the wholder conversation,
Speaker 1: but he's not looking at it from the legal end
Speaker 1: of just how hunter is just gonna get trounsed in
Speaker 1: the legislature, you know, like as the as the percentage
Speaker 1: of Americans who hunt shrinks and shrinks, and people keep
Speaker 1: talking about like the new breed of hunters. But when
Speaker 1: they talk about hunter increase in recent years, when they say,
Speaker 1: like there's a nine percent increase, that's not that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean nine percent nine percent more of the American population
Speaker 1: something to talk about a nine percent increase of like
Speaker 1: one percent of the population. You know, Yeah, we're just
Speaker 1: so it's like I don't know, Like I don't know,
Speaker 1: are they like how many more tags are actually getting
Speaker 1: sold right now than five years ago. It's a great
Speaker 1: question because, you know, because I agree with you, I
Speaker 1: think most of this increase in in hunter uh in
Speaker 1: the number of hunters applying. It's just most of us
Speaker 1: are applying in multiple states now. The game of Fish
Speaker 1: departments have gone to online applications, you know, the new
Speaker 1: generation hunters just totally into the online thing. They're allowing
Speaker 1: you to use a credit card now or you used
Speaker 1: to have to write a check. And I think the
Speaker 1: bonus point thing is a huge thing because it doesn't
Speaker 1: feel like money wasted. People think they've got something when
Speaker 1: they get a point. I feel that way. That's why
Speaker 1: like Alaska, New Mexico don't offer bonus points, and I
Speaker 1: always feel like one, like you got a good chance
Speaker 1: to draw on something because you know, like you're in
Speaker 1: there with everybody, but you also feel like you didn't
Speaker 1: come away with some like tangible good. You know, you're
Speaker 1: the best odds of drawn a sheep tagger, go tagger,
Speaker 1: and moose tagger all in Idaho. But Idaho doesn't have
Speaker 1: bonus points, so people don't apply there because they don't
Speaker 1: feel like they're getting something for their money. They gotta
Speaker 1: buy a hunting license and they got a front quite
Speaker 1: a bit of money, but they're not getting a tangible
Speaker 1: asset when it's all said and done, like somehow you
Speaker 1: can wild these points to your kids. You know, when
Speaker 1: it's all said and done, people just don't apply. Therefore,
Speaker 1: you know, Idaho's got the best odds of drawing any
Speaker 1: one of those tags by how by how much? Oh,
Speaker 1: you know, on sheep, you're looking at, you know, anywhere
Speaker 1: from three to seven percent chance in some units. You
Speaker 1: know they were in most of the you know states
Speaker 1: like Arizona, New Mexico. Call it what in Mexico is
Speaker 1: terrible for different reasons, but Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, you know,
Speaker 1: you're looking at half percent to one percent odds. So
Speaker 1: you know, roughly fourteen fifteen times better. And uh, it's
Speaker 1: it's all about when they don't have they don't have
Speaker 1: really big sheep too, so that that doesn't help either.
Speaker 1: But uh um, but yeah, it's just a fact that
Speaker 1: they're not getting a bonus point. People don't want to
Speaker 1: they don't want to put the money on for the listeners.
Speaker 1: I'll say that the three the three animals that are
Speaker 1: just the three animals that are single percentage point odds
Speaker 1: of hunting are things that most people aren't interested. Like
Speaker 1: the most people aren't interested in hunting anyways unless you
Speaker 1: get really into hunting. Is like moose, sheep and goats.
Speaker 1: So like moose, big orange sheep, mountain goats. Um, it's
Speaker 1: just like you're not gonna drive unless you're if you're
Speaker 1: an Alaska resident, you'll be able to hunt mountain goats often.
Speaker 1: But no, it's just the kind of thing where you
Speaker 1: might get the opportunity once or twice in your lifetime,
Speaker 1: you know, in the West to hunt those animals, um,
Speaker 1: compared to everything else white tail, mule to or out
Speaker 1: you know. But it's funny as like we keep talk
Speaker 1: about these limited draw things in the West, and meanwhile
Speaker 1: they got areas in the East where they can't get
Speaker 1: people to shoot enough dear. There's like it's like there's
Speaker 1: two conversations going on, you know. I mean, like one hand,
Speaker 1: we're sitting here talking about all these plans to try
Speaker 1: to like find a way to get a chance to
Speaker 1: hunt them out and go. And in the other hand,
Speaker 1: they're thinking about overturning, you know, a hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: years of wildlife conservation efforts and making it you can
Speaker 1: go back to selling dear met on the market as
Speaker 1: way to try to get people interested in killing white
Speaker 1: tailed deer. It's just hard to tell. It's hard to
Speaker 1: tell where things are headed. And I've reread about it
Speaker 1: all the time, Like I've reread about, um, what the
Speaker 1: ramifications might be if we do, in fact get a
Speaker 1: bunch of new hunters. What what do we owe those
Speaker 1: people as far as opportunity goes? You know, Like how
Speaker 1: hard should should fishing game agencies be sitting back and saying,
Speaker 1: all right, never mind growing animals to full maturity, never
Speaker 1: mind growing animals to trophy size, we should just allow
Speaker 1: people to start killing deer. And it wind up being
Speaker 1: like where I grew up in Michigan, if you killed
Speaker 1: a two and a half year old deer, it was
Speaker 1: people came from miles away to look at that thing.
Speaker 1: It just didn't happen. I want, like, I have no
Speaker 1: idea what that means for the deer herd. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a you wind up with a very skewed one. You
Speaker 1: wind up in these situations like where I grew up.
Speaker 1: Is it is like we're talking about over to counter
Speaker 1: maximum opportunity. Everyone that wants can go buy a buff
Speaker 1: tag and you'll sit and you'll see thirty to forty
Speaker 1: dolls for every buck you see, and you never see
Speaker 1: a buck who makes it past definitely, Like I was
Speaker 1: saying two and a half, really that's kind of unfair,
Speaker 1: but like a three and a half or four and
Speaker 1: a half year old deer, no way, no way. And
Speaker 1: so it's like that's where opportunity got it was is
Speaker 1: like deer are born one to one. Yeah, so when
Speaker 1: you're sitting there and you watch twenty dolls walk by
Speaker 1: for every bod you see, those things are born in
Speaker 1: a one to one ratio, you know, And that's like
Speaker 1: sort of like opportunity management in my mind, run amuck.
Speaker 1: You have a very false pop like you have a
Speaker 1: very manipulated population a deer there, you know. And then
Speaker 1: the other hand is some of the stuff that we're
Speaker 1: talking about, like certain units in Arizona where you gotta
Speaker 1: apply eighteen years to draw the tag is way limited,
Speaker 1: but it's probably a more realistic You're probably looking at
Speaker 1: her to elk that probably resembles like a pre contact
Speaker 1: her elk. Yeah, very is more likely pre European contact
Speaker 1: her elk where you got elk there living to be
Speaker 1: nine years old, and there's a bunch of bulls. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you've got you've got old mature bulls that are
Speaker 1: genetically superior, passing on their jeans, you know, because they
Speaker 1: are the big, dominant, strong animal decision. Yeah, so you've
Speaker 1: got you know, whereas in the the the maximum opportunity areas,
Speaker 1: you've got spikes doing the breeding. Who knows what their
Speaker 1: genetic potential really is. I mean, I don't mean just
Speaker 1: big anilers. I mean just survivability. You know, do they
Speaker 1: have disease resistance? Are they able to live even could
Speaker 1: they possibly even live to four or five years old?
Speaker 1: You know, you've got those kind of deers, those kind
Speaker 1: of bucks passing on their genes. You know as as
Speaker 1: opposed to a buck that survived six years of hard winners.
Speaker 1: He knows where, you knows where and how to winner. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, he's got the genetic makeup to be a survivor.
Speaker 1: You know, you end up with and it's got to
Speaker 1: hurt the population. Another thing you hear people talking about
Speaker 1: is it puts it winds up putting reproductive stress on
Speaker 1: young animals, like young animals that wouldn't be putting energy
Speaker 1: into breeding become like breeding contenders and go to breed.
Speaker 1: But I see, like, I see both sides, you know,
Speaker 1: like I do with every issue, Like every wildlife issue
Speaker 1: is so complicated. I definitely see both sides of it
Speaker 1: because just asking myself, if that's there, if we're going
Speaker 1: to that direction, does it really Do I really want
Speaker 1: to be in a situation where I can only hunt
Speaker 1: once every four or five years? No way, man. You know,
Speaker 1: if you take a close look at the North American
Speaker 1: big game model, it was never about managing opportunity for hunters.
Speaker 1: It was about managing wildlife. And we've all got to
Speaker 1: keep our eye on that. That's really what it's all about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it wasn't like, yeah, no, I see you're saying, no
Speaker 1: one ever looked at it and thought, we, oh, we
Speaker 1: need to have these animals and people can shoot them.
Speaker 1: It was all about the wildlife. And I think whenever
Speaker 1: we decided that that's like here in Arizona, our habitats,
Speaker 1: it's so much different than say the Midwest or somewhere
Speaker 1: even in the Northwest particularly, but we just don't have
Speaker 1: the density of wildlife to fulfill the desires of the
Speaker 1: population day sharing Arizona. This residents much less with the
Speaker 1: non resident factors. So I mean, we just it's it's
Speaker 1: a rare opportunity if you're one of the lucky ones
Speaker 1: that gets to go hunting, and otherwise we just need
Speaker 1: to take care of the restlers. Because the same that
Speaker 1: years somewhat like where the water. You'll see the impact
Speaker 1: of water on the growth of an animal. I mean,
Speaker 1: you're living in a like a like a water limited
Speaker 1: in the reproductions the same way some years and some
Speaker 1: years we've got years that were so drowty that the
Speaker 1: elk didn't they didn't ruck, or it was marginal events,
Speaker 1: and then a lot of those cows didn't take and
Speaker 1: didn't reproduce just because it was so you know it
Speaker 1: was a marginal year for them to survive, much less
Speaker 1: to carry an offspring. Yeah, one thing you guys touched
Speaker 1: on a little while ago that was really something I
Speaker 1: see a lot of, or see every year. Hunters that
Speaker 1: put in for these once in a lifetime hunts and
Speaker 1: then finally draw this once in a lifetime hunt. They
Speaker 1: really don't have that skill set that say their friend
Speaker 1: or neighbor that is hunting some species every year, because
Speaker 1: those skills are you know, they're gonna allow it. They'll
Speaker 1: pass from species to species. But we had a good
Speaker 1: friend here a few years ago draw a strip tag
Speaker 1: and a really good smart guy and I don't think
Speaker 1: he'd been deer hunting in over a decade. Hired one
Speaker 1: of the very best guides in the state, and they
Speaker 1: have the most miserable hunt and opportunities to take great
Speaker 1: deer on multiple occasions, and just couldn't close the deal
Speaker 1: because the skill set wasn't there. Remembered about what marksmanship,
Speaker 1: or just delity to move and getting the safety off
Speaker 1: on time, to get the bullets in the gun to
Speaker 1: you know, just all those things that a guy that
Speaker 1: hunts a lot takes for granted, it's it's no guide
Speaker 1: in the world can overcome your inability to function under stress.
Speaker 1: And people think, I'll just go hire this this outfit
Speaker 1: are over here. These guys have done a great job,
Speaker 1: and everybody that hunts with him as successful. Well, you
Speaker 1: got to do your part. And a lot of these
Speaker 1: guys show up with no skill sets. They can't pull
Speaker 1: it off. That's a big deal. I married guy in Archie.
Speaker 1: L hunters, especially in Mexico, we always gotta We always
Speaker 1: got a lot of Midwesterners, you know, guys are white
Speaker 1: tail hunters. And the first day they'd be a stressed
Speaker 1: out mess. You know, bowls are screaming, and they have
Speaker 1: just you know, they're not sure which way to start
Speaker 1: point their bow. But by the second day they settled down,
Speaker 1: you know, and they're starting to get a little customed
Speaker 1: to it. And by the time you got a bowl
Speaker 1: inside thirty yards. That was my favorite client because he knew,
Speaker 1: he knew he'd shot so many white tailed deer, he
Speaker 1: knew how to hold that pen, he knew how to
Speaker 1: pick a spot, and he knew how to make a shot,
Speaker 1: you know, And how many guys in in Arizona, I
Speaker 1: know that uh, you know, they just they just freak
Speaker 1: out because the first time they have actually drawn their
Speaker 1: bow on an animal in eight years, you know, since
Speaker 1: the last time they drew an eilk tag. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the experience is invaluables. So I think on it
Speaker 1: every year. I'm trying to draw areas. I'm looking at
Speaker 1: areas where I can draw over and over again. You know,
Speaker 1: in Utah, you know, I'm gonna go to an area
Speaker 1: hopefully this year they hunted. Last year that had hunters everywhere,
Speaker 1: but there was deer everywhere too. You know, there wasn't big,
Speaker 1: huge deer, but there was decent, you know, just good
Speaker 1: looking four points I could find the and four points.
Speaker 1: But just get out there, and even for myself, just
Speaker 1: more experienced, more experienced, more experience, because then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, there's gonna be Buck one of these days,
Speaker 1: and you know, hopefully, you know, gain enough experience shooting
Speaker 1: a smaller Bucks to make happen on that big But
Speaker 1: what is your I asked you to do this for
Speaker 1: me when when putting together the guide book series we
Speaker 1: have coming out, But Um did things like like like
Speaker 1: Denim's picks walk through what you feel like like one
Speaker 1: of the dream tag scenarils, so like walk through if
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to say, um, sort of like around
Speaker 1: the country, what are like a handful of things that
Speaker 1: if someone wants to do big game draws that what
Speaker 1: are some of the handful of long term goal, life
Speaker 1: altering things they should be doing. If I had to
Speaker 1: pick the dream hunts go by species, I'd say big
Speaker 1: horn sheep in the river, the river break country Missouri
Speaker 1: breaks country of Montana. I mean that's that's the one
Speaker 1: you put in for. Yeah, I always put in for
Speaker 1: like like six eight along with everybody got to. I
Speaker 1: mean you've got to. I mean it is that. I
Speaker 1: almost rather I wouldn't say, wouldn't rather hunt sheep, not
Speaker 1: hunt sheep in Montana? Then not draw that tag. But
Speaker 1: I'd just rather have that tag when you look like
Speaker 1: everybody knows, because people always had this conversation like six
Speaker 1: eight six eight, everyone knows six eighty. So there's a
Speaker 1: website you were showing hunters trailhead where you can go
Speaker 1: in and put in like how many bonus points you
Speaker 1: have nonresident resident, and it will give you an idea
Speaker 1: over the last handful of years what your odds would
Speaker 1: have been. And then it doesn't project though, right, No,
Speaker 1: it doesn't project shows you what your odds would have
Speaker 1: been in the previous years with with X number of points. Um.
Speaker 1: When I'll go look at those things, like you can
Speaker 1: put it in six eighty and realize you have point
Speaker 1: three percent chance, you know, and you look at the
Speaker 1: unit right next to it, and it will be point
Speaker 1: six percent chance. You're like, that's twice you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's twice as good, but twice as good. It's through
Speaker 1: still because people just put down six because it's like
Speaker 1: the famous unit. Man. I think sometimes you just got
Speaker 1: to you gotta believe that when it's your turn, it's
Speaker 1: your turn. The area is so cool, the animals are
Speaker 1: so cool, you can find them, right, Like, you're not
Speaker 1: gonna I shouldn't say that if you're an ambitious person
Speaker 1: who plans, well, you're not gonna draw that, not going
Speaker 1: to get a ram, right you know. Yeah, you're become
Speaker 1: whether you get like a giant or something, but you're
Speaker 1: gonna go there and be like, wow, there's a big
Speaker 1: orange sheet. Yeah, and that'd be one. You know, I
Speaker 1: would shoot a ram on that hunt, I mean, but
Speaker 1: I guarantee i'd probably if I didn't see a two
Speaker 1: kind of ram. You know, I'd be shooting a hundred
Speaker 1: seventy on the last day. It's a long season. You've
Speaker 1: got tons of time, and you can just look at
Speaker 1: a lot of sheet, a lot of sheep. You know,
Speaker 1: in Arizona, everybody to think, you know, your first instinct
Speaker 1: would be elk, But honestly, I'd have to say, well,
Speaker 1: desert big horn sheep. You know, in Arizona, you gotta you,
Speaker 1: you gotta go after desert big horn down here and
Speaker 1: and down here. Honestly, even though units twenty two and
Speaker 1: twenty four B or the units where they're killing the
Speaker 1: big sheep that everybody sees, but they're generally hunting those
Speaker 1: you know on the lake country. Yeah, the big reservoir
Speaker 1: where you're going in the boat. The only thing I
Speaker 1: regret about and I drew a bu tag back when
Speaker 1: it was north and South it was just one unit.
Speaker 1: And the only thing I regret over that is there's
Speaker 1: areas in Arizona like down in the Cabeza Prietta, Uh
Speaker 1: down it's down on the Mexican border where you can
Speaker 1: go for an entire month and you will not see
Speaker 1: another human being. If you choose not to. I mean,
Speaker 1: you are out there. You might see some drug runners,
Speaker 1: but that's about it. But you are in the wildest
Speaker 1: of wild country and you may not kill a tram.
Speaker 1: You're not gonna probably kill a hundi tram, but you're
Speaker 1: gonna have an adventure of a lifetime. That's the take.
Speaker 1: That's a take I would take. Yeah, I would rather
Speaker 1: have that in their way around. Yeah, you know, if
Speaker 1: you know, unfortunately, you know, I drew a great tag
Speaker 1: and had a great hunt, but uh, now I have
Speaker 1: to live in like a little league dad. Now my
Speaker 1: son's got fourteen or fifteen points and we have to
Speaker 1: live vicariously through him, and hopefully he'll draw one of
Speaker 1: those tags and we'll get to go do it, you know,
Speaker 1: an epic day hunt. But but that that's an interesting
Speaker 1: point with within the question. I already asked you, how
Speaker 1: is your good? He's twenty one, so he's already got
Speaker 1: that many points, so he'll hunt big horns absolutely center.
Speaker 1: I was talking to the guy, one of the guys
Speaker 1: that hunting fool. I had a conversation with him about this.
Speaker 1: He's saying, I can't remember what he said. If you're
Speaker 1: thirty and you start doing this, He says, you have
Speaker 1: a very good chance hunting two big horn sheep at thirty.
Speaker 1: If you're thirty years old, you start doing it, and
Speaker 1: you're doing in all of the state and all the
Speaker 1: worthwhile states, you'll have a chance. You might go in
Speaker 1: two big horn sheep hunts before you die. Tw in
Speaker 1: Colorado and Arizonic you've gotta you know, you've got a
Speaker 1: decent chance to get a tag in Colorado if you're
Speaker 1: thirty years old, if you play their game, and uh
Speaker 1: in you know Nevada. You know, Nevada is a bit
Speaker 1: of a gamble, but like like Montana, they square your points.
Speaker 1: So if you stick with it long enough, you might
Speaker 1: have you know, you're gonna get to the point where
Speaker 1: you're having seven eight percent chance every year and hopefully,
Speaker 1: you know it happens before you're sixty. But but you know,
Speaker 1: the one thing in Arizona, antelope are antelope are just outrageous.
Speaker 1: You know, we just the genetics down here are just
Speaker 1: off the charts. So i'd have to put antelope right
Speaker 1: out there at the top two. Is that like a
Speaker 1: pretty quality hunt, like um the low pressure and it's
Speaker 1: it is, except for the fact, like we've already talked
Speaker 1: about the the you know, we call it gang hunting.
Speaker 1: You know, antelope are pretty visible, so they are susceptible
Speaker 1: to having about five or six guys out running around
Speaker 1: covering lots of country looking at bucks. Um, so it's
Speaker 1: not quite as remote as you'd like it to be,
Speaker 1: just because they're just too dog invisible. But to put
Speaker 1: a really beautiful lantimal on the wall arizon is tough
Speaker 1: to beat. It just impossible to beat. But uh in
Speaker 1: New Mexico is great for that as well. But Colorado,
Speaker 1: for Meal there is the one that's still a mystery
Speaker 1: to I say a mystery to me, it's not a mystery.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of great units, but that's the one
Speaker 1: state where guys really need to be focused on Meal there.
Speaker 1: I had one tag there. I had a tag there
Speaker 1: a couple years ago and twenty one, and I saw
Speaker 1: a buck there in the archery hunt. He was down
Speaker 1: on private. I never even had a chance to kill him,
Speaker 1: but this buck was I saw him for probably twenty seconds,
Speaker 1: but probably thirty three thirty four inches wide, had enough
Speaker 1: points that I couldn't even figure out exactly what was
Speaker 1: going on. But I mean definitely a buck that was
Speaker 1: north at just a monster in an area in a
Speaker 1: year that wasn't even that great. One's got a bit
Speaker 1: of reputation, but it's not it's it's over, it's it's
Speaker 1: definitely not what it used to be. But Colorado from
Speaker 1: Meal there would be and then uh, it's Unfortunately a
Speaker 1: lot of my dreams were revolved around meal there hunting.
Speaker 1: Can you know, can sittery and I haven't. I'm like you,
Speaker 1: I've never killed a big meal there, I mean a
Speaker 1: truly big buck. I'm gonna killed a couple of fun
Speaker 1: I care about getting a big one off, I know,
Speaker 1: and I've every I've had a great good tag in
Speaker 1: Nevada or a good tag in Wyoming and good tag
Speaker 1: in Colorado. I've had a couple of tags over my
Speaker 1: lifetime and I thought, this is it and it just
Speaker 1: doesn't happen. You know, it hasn't happened yet. But Nevada
Speaker 1: to thirty one for for Meal dere uh the Henry Mountains. Um,
Speaker 1: when you're not going to draw the Henry Mountain tag? Now,
Speaker 1: now that's a that's dream. That's another one where you
Speaker 1: just you're better off, you know, you're drawing a sheet
Speaker 1: tag before you draw that. Most likely you'll draw a
Speaker 1: sheet tag before you draw chances and hunt mule during
Speaker 1: Henry Mountains. Yeah, if you really want to hunt to Henry's,
Speaker 1: you need to go focus yet, go focus on focus
Speaker 1: on your career and buy an auction tag. It's probably
Speaker 1: you've got a better chance of you know, focusing on
Speaker 1: your career and making a bunch of money and go
Speaker 1: buy a tag than you do a drawing one. Do
Speaker 1: you put in for moose tags in the West? I
Speaker 1: put in Utah, you know, back when, back when Utah
Speaker 1: limited you to one limited entry species, I chose moose.
Speaker 1: You know, so I've got fifteen or eighteen points. But
Speaker 1: I was just looking at my odds back when the
Speaker 1: applications are doing. You know, I'm in that two percent range,
Speaker 1: you know, So so fifteen or eighteen years of applying, Yeah,
Speaker 1: for nonresident you're you're down there in the two percent range.
Speaker 1: But you know, you look at this stayed like, you know,
Speaker 1: like Idaho. You know, you and I've talked about Idaho.
Speaker 1: There's units there that you know your odds are eight
Speaker 1: or ten percent. That point I started getting like when
Speaker 1: I see something like that, like with the number of
Speaker 1: bonus points I have in Montana on mountain goats, I'm
Speaker 1: running in the eight nine percent. You would actually draw
Speaker 1: that thing, now, yeah, you know, yeah, that's why I
Speaker 1: put moose in Idaho is something that if guys are
Speaker 1: really want to do what you do, you know, because
Speaker 1: what they do in nonresidents. We have to choose between elk,
Speaker 1: You have to choose between moose, goat, and sheep. You
Speaker 1: can apply for one of those three. But if you
Speaker 1: apply for one of those three, then you can't apply
Speaker 1: for the limited entry deer, elk, and antalope tags. So
Speaker 1: the past couple of years I've been doing the deer, elk,
Speaker 1: and antalope tags, which I'm over three, so them in
Speaker 1: the same odds I used to one or the other.
Speaker 1: There it's one or the other. Well, you can also
Speaker 1: go hunt over the counter. You can hunt over the
Speaker 1: counter there for for for elk, and I think honestly,
Speaker 1: some of the most overlooked, you know, the most overlooked
Speaker 1: opportunity to entire west or over the counter units or
Speaker 1: over the counter or you know, one or zero points
Speaker 1: at one point, And is it for that reason you
Speaker 1: think that because some units are just the draw unit,
Speaker 1: and everybody's just focused there that the unit next door
Speaker 1: is like, yeah, those animals don't know, and nobody pays
Speaker 1: attention to them. And you look at the you know,
Speaker 1: the resources we have, you know the magazines. You know,
Speaker 1: they're all tout the big units, and everybody thinks the
Speaker 1: other units just have trash. I mean, I had an
Speaker 1: antalope tag in Wyoming this past year and we're running
Speaker 1: around looking for antal open. I stopped the truck and
Speaker 1: there was a point. It was about a hundred yards out,
Speaker 1: so I kind of walked out the point. I was
Speaker 1: looking over a huge vast area for just to see
Speaker 1: if I could find and he hurts antelope and I
Speaker 1: just happened to look down to see where the road
Speaker 1: was going to go down this ridge line, and I
Speaker 1: see a spot moving in the middle of road, and
Speaker 1: I throw my binoculars up and there's a mule deer
Speaker 1: walking down the road that I can tell from its
Speaker 1: body is enormous, and I could see it had antlers,
Speaker 1: but it was probably a mile away. So I run
Speaker 1: to my truck, grabbed my spotting scope, and I put
Speaker 1: my spotting scope up and they're standing one of the
Speaker 1: largest meal deer I've ever seen in my entire life.
Speaker 1: This sings like I told Kyle was with me. I said, Kyle,
Speaker 1: I said, I think this deer might be thirty eight
Speaker 1: inches And he's like, no way. So we go running too,
Speaker 1: and we go we drive down there, and he dove
Speaker 1: off into the canyon and we got to that spot
Speaker 1: and we we walked out and I'm looking way down
Speaker 1: the canyon thinking that deer's gotta be running. And meanwhile
Speaker 1: I see Kyle throw the camera and uh, and I'm looking,
Speaker 1: what's he filming? I look and there's a deer standing
Speaker 1: there thirty yards away and he wasn't thirty seven but
Speaker 1: he's thirty two thirty three wide tall, out in the
Speaker 1: middle of nowhere Antelope Country. And it couldn't find out.
Speaker 1: It's a totally it's a general unit. It's a general unit.
Speaker 1: And dear season ended two days before his bucks walking
Speaker 1: right down the middle of road. Now, I had right
Speaker 1: across the highway. I had one of their hardest to
Speaker 1: draw deer tags the year before. I mean it literally
Speaker 1: right across the highway from where this was. I never
Speaker 1: saw a deer of that caliber, not even close to
Speaker 1: that caliber during my hunt. And it took me eight
Speaker 1: years to draw that tag, and I could have drawn
Speaker 1: this one one year. You know, his favorite unit in Colorado,
Speaker 1: his favorite like mule deer unit. We were looking at
Speaker 1: hunting fool and I took a picture of their description
Speaker 1: of his unit, which is not a glowing I took
Speaker 1: a picture and texted it to him and he wrote back,
Speaker 1: I hope they never changed that. It was just like
Speaker 1: a base almost like that, Dad, I don't bother. I
Speaker 1: think you gotta get all of those resources to figure
Speaker 1: out where not to apply at times if you're gonna
Speaker 1: follow you know the strategy if I want to hunt
Speaker 1: every year. But so, I don't know if you really
Speaker 1: answered your question on those premier tags yet it was
Speaker 1: a good sense. And then what, um, what are the
Speaker 1: things like if people just want to go hunt all right?
Speaker 1: You just want to be like one of these years
Speaker 1: when it's when time is right, you just want to
Speaker 1: go out hunt the West, maybe get to go for
Speaker 1: two different species, you know it's your big chance. What
Speaker 1: are what are the states I tend to be like,
Speaker 1: I'll see what I tend to say in just based
Speaker 1: on friends and own experiences. I'm wanted, Like if you
Speaker 1: want to go and have where you can just like
Speaker 1: you're gonna see dear. You know you're not gonna get
Speaker 1: a big one, but you're going sea plane dear. There's
Speaker 1: plenty of plane tag opportunities, Like Montan is great for
Speaker 1: mu Elier, Like if you want to go and have
Speaker 1: a good on and see stuff. And I always point
Speaker 1: out that, um, Colorado's got a lot of elk tags,
Speaker 1: a lot of out no giants, but like you can
Speaker 1: go and have a solid hunt. Yeah, you know, Wyoming antelope.
Speaker 1: I think Wyoming antelope still one of the most underrated
Speaker 1: hunts in the West because they don't You're not gonna
Speaker 1: go see a bunch of huge bucks wud, You're gonna
Speaker 1: see a lot of antelope. There's you know, tags are
Speaker 1: easy to get. You can get dough tags, um. And
Speaker 1: it's still an adventure when you're in Wyoming. You're in
Speaker 1: the middle of nowhere no matter where you are, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, wyom In's just at adventure. So i'd say
Speaker 1: woman antelope, Arizona cous deer, like we kind of already
Speaker 1: talked about um. I think is uh is still the
Speaker 1: most underrated big game species in the West. No one
Speaker 1: even knows what it is. I didn't know what one was.
Speaker 1: It's I thought people were screwing up and saying keys
Speaker 1: do you're like the white tails they got into Florida
Speaker 1: keys like cusire. I'm like, yeah, there's a little shipping things.
Speaker 1: When you're out fishing in Florida, there's not a there
Speaker 1: is nothing. There is not a single aspect of your
Speaker 1: game that you don't have to be extremely good at
Speaker 1: to hunt couster and to effectively hunt couster and you
Speaker 1: can draw it every year. Um, I mean, you've got
Speaker 1: to be in good shape. You've got to be able
Speaker 1: to shoot, you've got to be able to pack, you
Speaker 1: gotta be able to glass. I mean, it's uh, it's
Speaker 1: way it's just way underrated. Um. I think you know
Speaker 1: New Mexico Melder's kind of the same way. You know,
Speaker 1: you've got there's two A to B and two C
Speaker 1: up in the north central part of the state that
Speaker 1: everybody focuses on because that's all the one that's the
Speaker 1: only ones that magazines talk about. But New Mexico has
Speaker 1: got good genetics from top to bottom. Let me say good.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can you you can hope to shoot
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty hundred and sixty in deer, you know,
Speaker 1: just a really good solid four point and probably not
Speaker 1: seen there as many people as you might on a
Speaker 1: Colorado hunt. Uh, Nevada, and Nevada has got great genetics.
Speaker 1: And every unit of the state, now there's some that
Speaker 1: are just absolutely no doubt better than others. But that's
Speaker 1: a difficult state to get a permit in though, right, well,
Speaker 1: some units are some units are. It is something you
Speaker 1: just a really easy. Now when I say easy, you
Speaker 1: can probably drawing one every second or third year. And
Speaker 1: uh and for a lot of people, you know, every
Speaker 1: two or three years about all that they can probably
Speaker 1: afford from a vacation standpoint. So drawing went every second
Speaker 1: or third years, you know, probably exactly what fits into
Speaker 1: their life schedule once they we haven't talked about it all.
Speaker 1: It's kind of funny. State with draws is like the
Speaker 1: Alaska set up, where there's a couple of things like
Speaker 1: like if you're a nonresident muscos, you have to draw.
Speaker 1: But it's funny because like every species there there's over
Speaker 1: to counter opportunities for and draw opportunities. In the draw
Speaker 1: opportunities tend not to be quality or abundance to animals.
Speaker 1: It tends to be the closer it is the highway system,
Speaker 1: the more of the chance it's a draw. So the
Speaker 1: best hunts in Alaska aren't the draw hunts necessarily, you know.
Speaker 1: It's just like when you see a drawing unit there,
Speaker 1: it just means like, yeah, you can drive to it.
Speaker 1: So we got a limit, you know, like hunting caribou
Speaker 1: on the Kenai. It's like it's accessible, so you gotta
Speaker 1: draw that. Meanwhile, you can go kill what the like
Speaker 1: a bang limit of ten caribou, you know, in the
Speaker 1: Western Brooks Range, And it's just like it's just a
Speaker 1: whole different system up there. You know. I still do
Speaker 1: the draws there because it's a handful of things, Like
Speaker 1: there's those elk I guess not experimental but introduced el
Speaker 1: kerds is drawn, the muscos is drawn. Only the best
Speaker 1: doll sheep units are drawn, not the best Yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: the best draw doll sheep units are drawn only. I
Speaker 1: kind of drew the best of the best with that
Speaker 1: silver spoon, going, yeah, I get to see I get
Speaker 1: my tags because they just want to see cand of
Speaker 1: perpetuate that the governor hand delivers of it. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: bringing his nail me whatever I want. But still the
Speaker 1: other thing I think that in most people have kind
Speaker 1: of figured this out, but I think it needs to
Speaker 1: be reiterated, is pick up a bow. I mean, just
Speaker 1: today's today's archery equipment, you know, and you've got most
Speaker 1: major cities anyways, you've got good pro shops. You can
Speaker 1: learn to shoot a boat pretty quick. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it takes a long time to get really proficient, but
Speaker 1: it's fun. And the opportunities for archers, you know, still
Speaker 1: the best in the West. You know, that's something I
Speaker 1: don't I wish we wouldn't have waited so long, you know,
Speaker 1: just a touch on that is there is just an
Speaker 1: unbelievable amount of archery opportunity, you know. And in Arizona
Speaker 1: in January you can come out and hunt deer over
Speaker 1: the counter in the middle of the rut. We've got
Speaker 1: haviling the tags that they have leftovers for every year,
Speaker 1: Kyloe seasons open, lion hunting's open. Uh, quail season, quail
Speaker 1: season and dove season are open. Basically it's got fur
Speaker 1: and feather. You know, there's a legal means of killing it,
Speaker 1: you know, and hunting it in Arizona in January and
Speaker 1: it's a beautiful time to be in the desert. But yeah,
Speaker 1: archery opportunities are still some of the most underutilized we're
Speaker 1: you know in the country. Of course, there's probably some
Speaker 1: bow hunters gonna send me a nasty gram for even
Speaker 1: promoting that. But what's interesting I read in easterns that
Speaker 1: one of those one of those uh issues you were
Speaker 1: just talking about today, um that in Colorado now the
Speaker 1: archery hunters are equaling the success rate of the rifle
Speaker 1: hunters for elk because because they're hunting in the run,
Speaker 1: so you can hear them, and so it's just that
Speaker 1: much easier to find them, you know, where the rifle
Speaker 1: hunter can't find them. And again with today's equipment, I mean,
Speaker 1: everybody's getting pretty good all season light is that like
Speaker 1: is the bow season way longer? Way longer? Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a whole month best thing. Like in Montana, man would
Speaker 1: be like bow hunting there that season overly September six
Speaker 1: and September three sometimes and it would go you hunt,
Speaker 1: you get all of September, first couple of weeks of October,
Speaker 1: you know, all like the runs long and then it's
Speaker 1: just you just go and go. You get sick of going,
Speaker 1: you know, you can wear yourself out. It was like
Speaker 1: it's like it's like, oh man, another weekend, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean that you're like you realize you hunted you
Speaker 1: bowl hunted out seven weekends in the row now, I
Speaker 1: mean it's a lot of hunting. You can get off
Speaker 1: a bowl. Yeah, but you know, you see most archers,
Speaker 1: uh you know, they're definitely at high level, high level
Speaker 1: of skill set. Group of guys, the ones that are
Speaker 1: true archers. Did you see I've never met a good
Speaker 1: archer that didn't shoot a rifle. Well, oh yeah, it's
Speaker 1: just there. You know, that's a that's a definitely a
Speaker 1: The guys that are serious about it or a click
Speaker 1: above them, if they had an opportunity with a rifle,
Speaker 1: would take that. Also, you know, it's not like the
Speaker 1: die hard archers and I'm thinking of these, you're just
Speaker 1: guys that wanted an opportunity. Yeah. Yeah. My brother, as
Speaker 1: far as the bow hunting gun hunting thing goes, yeah,
Speaker 1: he just has this very like this internal battle all
Speaker 1: the time where he doesn't like, uh, he doesn't feel
Speaker 1: good to shoot something with a rifle. He's a bowl hunter,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. But at the same time
Speaker 1: it just doesn't mean anything to him. You know. He says,
Speaker 1: like a harvest for me, like to shoot some of
Speaker 1: my rifles like a harvest. It's like, I'm just shooting me,
Speaker 1: you know, for the freezer um. But at the same
Speaker 1: time he has this like hatred for his bone, which
Speaker 1: he actually loves because the efficacy and wound loss is
Speaker 1: so much higher with a bone and arrow, so he's like,
Speaker 1: it feels so much better. But at the same time
Speaker 1: he goes, I almost hate myself for doing it, Like
Speaker 1: sometimes I have this weird thought that I wish that
Speaker 1: somehow I couldn't bow hunt anymore, so I didn't have
Speaker 1: to have the struggle of it, like I love it.
Speaker 1: But then he just had to live with this fact
Speaker 1: that you're gonna have a higher radar wound loss, you know,
Speaker 1: like the efficacy of a rifle is just in the
Speaker 1: right hands, you know, the efficacy of a rifle is great,
Speaker 1: and there's just so much room for air on bows,
Speaker 1: and they factor that stuff in, man, you know, they
Speaker 1: factor that stuff. And when it said when they allocate tags,
Speaker 1: you know, and they they're definitely gonna move Eventually, these
Speaker 1: game official departments are gonna understand that the success rate
Speaker 1: with this archery equipment, in the level and quality of
Speaker 1: these hunters is dramatically different than it was ten years.
Speaker 1: There's just no question. But I watched. I don't consider
Speaker 1: myself an archer. Uh, you know, I utilize the archers
Speaker 1: to get a system, to get a permit, and uh,
Speaker 1: I'm always amazed at how effective they are as a
Speaker 1: there's a tool, if you know, if everything goes right
Speaker 1: in the right hands. But when you look at a
Speaker 1: rifle hunter, I mean, there's no hardly in the excuse
Speaker 1: to make a mistake with it still happens, You're honest.
Speaker 1: And now we're having this conversation earlier, we're trying to
Speaker 1: find a way like many editors, and and I know, Chris,
Speaker 1: you have is like a thing that everybody asked now
Speaker 1: is like what is it too what shots too far?
Speaker 1: What's too far? With a rifle? You can't define it.
Speaker 1: Like I got a friend who teaches, and when having
Speaker 1: this conversation, I was pointing out, I got a friend
Speaker 1: who is an instructor. He's a Marine Corps sniper and
Speaker 1: a sniper instructor. I'm not gonna go say to him,
Speaker 1: what's too far for him to shoot? Because he is
Speaker 1: gonna at six hundred yards, he's gonna call his shot
Speaker 1: better than I'm going to call it two hundred yards.
Speaker 1: It's all about the conference. So it winds up being
Speaker 1: like it's so hard to define because you have to
Speaker 1: like I've struggled with the definition, and the best I've
Speaker 1: come up with is it's too far when there's a
Speaker 1: question in your mind about whether you're going to hit
Speaker 1: it where you want to or not. And I used
Speaker 1: to when I first started hunting the West, particularly hunting anilope,
Speaker 1: we would shoot an animal basically to see if you'd
Speaker 1: hit it, you know, And I now realize that that
Speaker 1: is even though it wasn't that far, it was three
Speaker 1: I remember my brother shooting an animal that we paced
Speaker 1: off at three nine yards when we first moved to Montana,
Speaker 1: and it was there's no worry, your mission, you can
Speaker 1: go and see three yards. It was unfammibled to me.
Speaker 1: You know, they did it, and now I think like
Speaker 1: a three ys when the conditions are right, you know
Speaker 1: where that thing is going. But when we were shooting
Speaker 1: so at that time, three yards was too far because
Speaker 1: if it wasn't, we shouldn't have been surprised when an
Speaker 1: animal tipped over. There should be no element of holy
Speaker 1: how you hit it? Yeah, you know when whenever you
Speaker 1: had the thought rendsty your mind that I'm going to
Speaker 1: shoot at that animal instead of shoot that animal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, you know you're making a mistake. You know,
Speaker 1: it's just in the animals deserved more than that. We
Speaker 1: all taken our share of stupid shots. Yeah, And I'm
Speaker 1: not saying not even done doing it, because it's just
Speaker 1: you get caught up in the moment rights and you know,
Speaker 1: get excited. But yeah, I think that's it. I watched
Speaker 1: so much. But we were right in the middle of
Speaker 1: the long range stuff ten fifteen years ago. We ended
Speaker 1: up there accidentally. We were developing a rifle that had
Speaker 1: a a zero was in the kill zone from the
Speaker 1: muzzle to five hundred yards, and it was at sight.
Speaker 1: And explain what you mean by that, Well, you want
Speaker 1: to be able to look at an animal from zero
Speaker 1: to five hundred yards and not need to know the
Speaker 1: range because the rifles seem so flat. You know, you
Speaker 1: hold right if it's way out there, you're gonna hold
Speaker 1: right level with the top of its back. If it's closed,
Speaker 1: you might duck down a little bit and be down
Speaker 1: on the lower section of the animal, but you never
Speaker 1: had to come off of the animal. Uh. That's another point.
Speaker 1: When you see people holding off of an animal, you're
Speaker 1: you're shooting at it, you aren't shooting it. And uh,
Speaker 1: and we ended up in that. And I watched some
Speaker 1: in my skill shoot. My ability to shoot dramatically improved
Speaker 1: when from being able to shoot things at two and
Speaker 1: three hundred yards to seven and eight hundred yards. And
Speaker 1: I shot a few animals at those distances, but they
Speaker 1: were under super controlled situations. And I bet I passed
Speaker 1: dozens of animals that I didn't shoot at those distances
Speaker 1: because everything wasn't right. And what you see now is
Speaker 1: you see people that are just shooting it stuff at
Speaker 1: long range, you know, and that you know, the animals
Speaker 1: deserve a better deal of that. I mean, we were
Speaker 1: we older more than that. Yeah, I think it's almost
Speaker 1: a line where you ask yourself, am I just am
Speaker 1: I shooting this animal? Or am I hunting this animal?
Speaker 1: You know, you reach a point where, yeah, I can
Speaker 1: shoot that far, but I an't even actually I'm not
Speaker 1: actually hunting right now, I'm just literally just shooting, you know,
Speaker 1: when you see you know, and you see it all
Speaker 1: too often now people, you know, elk at eight hundred
Speaker 1: nine hundred thousand yards. You can't honestly tell me you're
Speaker 1: hunting an elk a thousand yards. You're not hunting him,
Speaker 1: You're just shooting him, you know. And it's still you know,
Speaker 1: it still doesn't answer the question how farst too far?
Speaker 1: You know? But no, if it's it's a it's like
Speaker 1: an impossible question. It wasn't something that people who're talking
Speaker 1: about before. I think what what brought it up was?
Speaker 1: I guess the range finders. Right range finders changed the
Speaker 1: whole game, you know, it just it changed everything now,
Speaker 1: you know, with the rifles we have, you know, the
Speaker 1: the you know, a rifle can put you know something,
Speaker 1: you know, a really good shooting rifle put you know,
Speaker 1: a bullet and an Adian circle at a thousand yards,
Speaker 1: you know, with a competent shooter, you know, and of
Speaker 1: course controlled scenario, you know, a known scenario with wind
Speaker 1: and everything else that's going on. And I don't want
Speaker 1: to trivialize this stuff either, because it's difficult. It's not
Speaker 1: like anybody's gonna pick up and shoot eight. And I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just there's a lot of technical skill involved in
Speaker 1: shooting that kind of stuff and control, a huge amount
Speaker 1: of guesswork. And mean, Floyd and I went up to
Speaker 1: and I don't know if you've been to the Vortex
Speaker 1: Extreme Challenge yet you've done that in Utah, would like
Speaker 1: you need to go up and watch that sometime. It's
Speaker 1: pretty interesting. Just like hearing people talking about, oh, it's
Speaker 1: it's insane. Somebody probably the finest group of Western marksmen
Speaker 1: who are also hunters in ever. You know, they're all
Speaker 1: right there at that shoot and they're shooting at known distances.
Speaker 1: Most of the guys have shot that course before, so
Speaker 1: they're you know, what the winds are kind of doing
Speaker 1: in those different canyons. And still the winners are not
Speaker 1: going to shoot. They're shooting between you know, three hundred
Speaker 1: and nine hundred thousand yards and they're not going to
Speaker 1: get hits to win, you know, So they're doing an
Speaker 1: under a scenario where they're they're they're exercising because it's
Speaker 1: all part of the courses. You're hiking a lot, so
Speaker 1: you're a little bit tired. But there's you don't have
Speaker 1: an adrenaline rush. You know, it's not like he's not
Speaker 1: getting away. He's gonna stand targets, gonna stand there perfectly broadside,
Speaker 1: you know, until you pull the trigger. Yet we're still
Speaker 1: not getting hits. But when you see it, you know,
Speaker 1: when you see stuff on on YouTube and TV shows
Speaker 1: and DVDs with you know the guys never miss you know,
Speaker 1: nobody ever misses. We know that's not true, not showing
Speaker 1: the part where he's hitting and the guy's calling the
Speaker 1: bullet flowing any of joustin shoots and calls the bullet
Speaker 1: and any hits, and like there's a gold at those distances.
Speaker 1: Those animals they don't even know. They don't hear the
Speaker 1: shot half the time, you know, unless you just blow
Speaker 1: up a rock right at its toes. They rarely get
Speaker 1: scared off, you know, when you're shooting at them. But
Speaker 1: to bring a full circle um with with technology creep
Speaker 1: and the inevitable rise and efficacy on hunter parts, fish
Speaker 1: and game agencies are gonna adjust and and they have
Speaker 1: a couple of tools at their disposal, Shorter seasons, fewer
Speaker 1: tags or moving seasons to less opportune hunting times, all
Speaker 1: of which mean that because of the things we're talking about,
Speaker 1: you need to pay attention to and learn how to
Speaker 1: play the tag game, because like it or not, it's
Speaker 1: coming to you. It's coming to a woods near you,
Speaker 1: all right, guys, thank you very much, Thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: H