The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 010

Episode Date: May 28, 2015

Scottsdale, Arizona. Steven Rinella talks with Chris Denham and Floyd Green of Western Hunter magazine, along with Janis Putelis from the MeatEater crew. Subjects discussed include: Western big game tag lotteries; how Western Hunter magazine came about; long-shot dream units vs. decent undersubscribed units; the three hardest species to draw tags for; what would happen if everyone in this country went out and killed a deer; the psychology behind bonus points; the most underrated big game species; how draw tags aren't necessarily better than over-the-counter tags; how hunters today are better than hunters of yesterday; the Strip; the woes of trail cams; and why Steve's brother hates hunter recruitment. Guests in Episode #10: Chris Denham Western Hunter TV show Western Hunter magazine Floyd Green Watch Floyd and Steve on the mountain lion hunt with dogs in MeatEater Volume 3 Western Hunter magazine Enjoying the podcast? Please take a minute and subscribe to us on iTunes (best for iOS devices) and on Stitcher (best for Android devices). Connect with Steve and MeatEaterSteve on Instagram and TwitterMeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeShop MeatEater Merch Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints and tracking. You can even use offline maps to see where you are

without cell phone service as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. Okay, everyone, thanks for joining us. This is the Meat Eater Podcast. We're recording out of Scottsdale, but not quite. In the background, you might hear if you're lucky a dog baying or barking that's a that's a that's a lion hunting dog owned

by Floyd green who owns and operates outdoorsman's and wilderness athlete and then his you guys are like you guys consider yourself business partners oh yeah yeah I don't think the whole world you guys whole world is like convoluted to me but also um we call it a sesh to us yeah chris denham of uh western hunter infamy from does western hunter television show western hunter and elk hunter magazines managing editor what yeah change the titles no it's publisher good floyd and i do actually we we trade we're co-publishers is that right of western or no yeah oh really these two guys are involved like and i don't i i don't pretend to understand where one thing

lets up and where one thing ends and another thing begins. But these guys are very involved in a handful of brands and companies and lifestyle things that I'm interested in. There's a wilderness athlete, outdoorsman's, like wilderness athletes, like performance enhancing products. Outdoorsman's optics is how you get into that right primarily optics optics backpack systems accessories and stuff it started out you started on the optics business no start on the gun business oh really that's what outdoorsman began as guns right all right an atf soon made me realize that it'd probably be good to have a second occupation oh is that right so that's how the optics thing came up that's where the optics thing came all right and then what i'll as western hunters been around

a long time yeah yeah basically it's funny when floyd got in the optics business i was a swarovski rep and his first real order besides ray steiner was in was swarovski and it was my you guys met yeah that's how we met but the first what i was doing my my training with the rep group, he gave me a little bit of training the first day on the job and he says, hey, I want to go introduce you to this account over here in town. So we drove over and we walked in and it was the Outdoorsman's and I met Floyd that day. Really? It was my first day on the job as a rep and he'd just gotten your first Swarovski

order at the time. He'd just gotten his first Swarovski order. And you guys said, we should start a magazine. yeah that was a decade later yeah it was a decade before we started it started out as a kind of a catalog to talk about outdoors and products and and you know we put a couple articles in there on how to how to use this stuff you know and uh and before you know it people wanted to advertise and they wanted more articles and then we started calling it a matalog and it grew into a magazine and and yeah it's been just a work in progress i i've told i told floyd this story but um like i remember so clearly the first

time i ever had my hands on a issue of western hunter i remember so i opened up and seen like dudes sitting there with binoculars on tripods, which I now realize is like, I don't like looking through binoculars any other way, but sitting there like looking out in like flat, dry-ass desert and be like, what in the world

were they looking for? Yeah, that was quite a while ago. Yeah, so then, and then now elk hunter too and i know floyd and people who watch the show immediately probably would know floyd from we did a um we did an episode with floyd about hunting for mountain lions and um went out twice have yet to lay eyes on a mountain lion with floyd but it cured me forever of what not cured me up it made me antagonistic almost to the point of violence to anyone who wants to tell me that there's no challenge in lion hunting. I'm telling you what, man.

We'll talk about that at another time, but I can't wait with that, with a very deep respect of what goes into lion hunting, particularly the dry ground, the no snow lion hunting. It's a different game out here. Yeah. That's a whole other conversation Chris so Chris Denim used to but you were in the tag like the big game tag business yeah you know I

started an application business along with with Western or magazine oh gosh probably seven eight nine years ago mm-hmm they ran a tag service for about probably about five or six years until i finally got burned out on that game just it really it was an evolution thing you know elk hunter magazine came along and it just it just became too many things to to keep up you know too many balls in the air constantly yeah and it really because i i took my attention to people's tags was just like my own. I was just paranoid. I was constantly, I couldn't handle the stress of the application business.

I was so afraid of making a mistake. Oh, I'm sure, man. But I loved it in that it kept me, you know, I was constantly researching, you know, looking at different ideas and options. So, I mean, I really enjoyed it in that respect, but it is a stressful business. Yeah. So, just to get some background what exactly we're talking about we're talking about tags you always hear people say like play the

tag game or tags or you know applying is most states all states in the west and more and more states in the east allocate some number of big game permits to through lotteries to applicants right so whether it's you know Michigan elk much of Michigan bear some areas for turkeys you know like Kentucky elk Pennsylvania elk, Maine moose, yep yep moose and Maine and then everywhere in the West in some some states, all big game tags, virtually all big game tags, are awarded through some sort of lottery. Where on a designated date, usually late winter, right? You fill out an application and send in some amount of money.

It varies by state, and we'll talk about that. And you're throwing your name in the hat to get to get a tag and then they do a drawing and you find out whether or not you're going hunting and um we get so many questions like like through the show and other things get so many questions from people who are always just trying to make sense of this whole system i'm like i'm newly familiar to it because when i like everywhere i've ever when i lived in montana i was hunting like the over-the-counter stuff but more and more you realize that the real dream hunts you know like the great stuff you're gonna go do is is uh got to play the system.

You got to jump in there and try to figure it out. It's hard, I think, for people to match it to whatever your budget might be or what your interests are. You got as much experience in this kind of thing as anybody I know. I kind of wanted to run through how does a guy who knows that at some point, right, he's going to go out and do like a hunt. Like how do you begin even thinking about this kind of stuff? And like where does a person spend the money? How much money does it cost? Like how do you, you know, what's a tag plan?

You know, the first thing a guy needs to do is start on the research end. You know, and there's resources out there. You know, traditionally it was, you know, like Hunful, Eastmans, that all had, you know, information on different units, what the premier units were. But now you've got a lot of online stuff coming on. There's one out right now called GoHunt.com. They just came out this year.

And they've got some, it's an incredible resource with maps. I mean, everything you'd want to know about a unit, about a state, about a species is all right there. You can break it down, which units have archery tags, which units have rifle tags. They just, they've only been live for about 90 days. And really, it's an impressive program they've got. But there's a lot of resources online. That Hunter'shead, the UCW and I've talked about that. It's got all your, your point points, what, how many points it might take to draw certain areas. But the first thing a guy's got to do is allocate a budget and it, cause it is, it really does come down to money.

You got to spend some money you told me like just to like when you when you get into the money thing i had a conversation with you a couple years ago we were talking about whether or not you could ever draw a big horn tag and you had said something to me you can clarify your own point you said something to me to the effect of if a guy comes to me and he's in his, I can't remember what it was, late 40s, early 50s, and says he wants to start trying to get a bighorn tag, you tell him, just take all that money now and go up to Alaska and go on a doll sheep hunt.

Yeah. Because you're going to wind up spending that much anyways and you're not going to get the tag. Yeah, it's true. Honestly, I've never actually done the math but i think i i think it might it might actually be accurate if you took all the money you were going to spend on you know mandatory hunting licenses and preference points uh and took all that money and went and bought you know because it could be up to you're going to be in the 1500 2000 range for that dollars for a sheep for sheep applications you could I think if you

went down and bought two thousand dollars worth of lottery tickets you probably stand a better chance of winning a million dollars in the lottery than you do a draw on a sheep tag you win a million dollars then you go buy all those tags yeah just go buy all the deals it's a it's a shame that that it's it's a shame it's just the reality of what we live in nowadays is that these tags are extremely rare and everybody knows about them for the most part.

There's a lot of resources and there's just a lot of people applying for them and everybody wants a chance. Actually, I think a lot of the raffles that states have nowadays have better odds sometimes than the actual.

I remember you saying to me that the Colorado raffle, like a bighorn raffle tag in Colorado, the money it costs you to apply for a sheet tag in Colorado, if you spent that money on raffle tickets, you get to where you have as good odds. And if you spent like a little bit extra, you'd have better odds than you do in the regular draw.

Absolutely. Especially in those four or five years ago unfortunately everybody kind of figured this out too is it you know there was three or four thousand tickets getting sold for that raffle tag if you went spent 1500 bucks you could get your odds up to five or six percent seven percent whereas your odds in the drawing you know were you know down in the half percent to one percent yeah yeah i mean it's literally 20 times better odds for you know we're you know down in the half percent to one percent yeah yeah i mean it's literally 20 times better odds for you know 20 times more money but at least you can't the one thing we can't buy is time so if you can improve your odds by 20 you know 20 fold you know and you've got the resources and you know it was a wise move at the time and you can correct me but

i think that a guy that writes for you guys, Mike Duplan, he did that and won one of those tags. Oh, he's the Colorado guy. Yeah. He's always talking about mule deer in Colorado. Yeah. Yeah, so he drew a big one, or won a bighorn tag. Yeah, he won the statewide Rocky Mountain bighorn tag.

And shot a tremendous sheet. Yeah. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah, a tremendous ram at like 11 000 feet in october it's a pretty epic story yeah that's cool man yeah do you lure that stuff like what's so cool about the limited draw things like the first limited draw tag i ever drew was a turkey limited draw tag in an area that was the first year they ever allowed turkey hunting

there yo really there's this place we used to always hunt black bears and I was like man there's a ton of turkeys around here. But you couldn't hunt them. And then one year I just like get the turkey book and look in there give an eye I can't remember what it was 20 tags or 15 tags it was this giant part of northwest Montana and um drew it and went out there and like people were always talking about yeah these animals had never heard a call i can guarantee those birds never heard a call because i was like the first hunt yeah to ever occur there i drew that tag a number of times and it was amazing it's like

everybody dreams about getting these situations that there's no other dudes around you know or it's just like where it's like a pure hunt you know you're just like you're hunting animals that aren't you're not you're hunting animals that are doing something more than just responding to other hunters. And certainly you can achieve that, you know, with just like over-the-counter tags. But when you start getting into the, into the draw units is when, I mean, you get like just the magical, magical spots that is the best you know that's the thing about the draws is it does put you into a hunt where you're going to have a lot less competition from people and then nowadays honestly that's really where the magic is for those hunts because you know even in arizona you know we were floyd and i've been talking about it how

even our some of our best elk units in our best deer units are getting pretty much overrun. I mean, there's just a, because hunters are becoming so much more efficient. You know, we're hunting, you might have two or three buddies out there with you. We've all got really good gear. We're a lot more committed than we used to be. I mean, it used to be like an archery elk hunt in Arizona. If you were out there on the weekends, you'd see people. If you were out there on Wednesday, you were by yourself.

Now, nowadays, everybody's out there for the entire season. You know, they're just hunting it like crazy. They burn their whole vacation. They burn it all. You feel like you've noticed that in your lifetime? Oh, absolutely. Oh, absolutely. I remember one of the first times I ever drew an Archie elk tag,

it was in 6A, which is one of our biggest units here, you know, more elk tags. And it was the first time I'd ever elk hunted. I'm from, born and raised in southern Arizonazona so i didn't even know anything about the woods uh and uh anyways i it was a wednesday it was a wednesday and hunted it on a thursday and i got lost before gps's i got lost i mean lost bad lost but you know you're in arizona you can only walk two miles before you hit another road and uh but i walked all freaking day before i finally ran into somebody in a truck you know i mean during hunting season during

hunting like the one time you want to remember yeah you know nowadays you just stand there and listen you'll hear the roads you know because there'll be you can hear trucks racing all through the it's like you're saying like in a unit same number of tags as always it just feels different now it just feels totally different yeah everybody's just hunting longer they're hunting harder you know they're more committed why because they're all reading western hunter magazine there's a lot of that yeah and the friends thing right i mean everybody goes out there with the team now and um i i felt like i even noticed it in unit 10 i'm the only guy there three years and it might have been just this one particular glass and knob but i felt like the first year i was there i felt like wow i got this

great glass and knob and like there's no boot tracks up here like there's really no sign and like man i'm looking at a lot of elk great two years later or two calendar years but it was the third season i got it there i hike up there one morning with a guy, and there's already three guys there. And then as it's getting light, I want to say like six guys showed up. And I mean, it was like this whole canyon rim was covered up with people with, I mean, there was $100,000 worth of optics sitting up there, you know? And I'm looking at my guy like, well, those guys are not hunting. They all have dudes down there hunting.

You and I need to leave because it's just you and I. So I can't tell you to go somewhere. Yeah. You know know in all those oh what a downer man it is a change 20 years ago i can remember we would be up there glassing people walking around out there and you'd see another hunter and you'd look him over real close look at his pack and you look and you saw a tripod you'd think this guy's a threat And then you'd see a guy walking with no tripod. You'd think, oh, he's just taking his rifle for a hike. Oh, really? You know, and it's just the intensity and the level and the skill set that these guys have these days has dramatically changed.

Yeah, it really is. It's a funny race. You know, trail cameras. You know, I mean, there's trail cameras everywhere. Yeah. You know, the big bulls, the big bucks. Somebody's got a picture of almost all of them. They all think they're going to kill that one.

You know, so they got all their buddies out there looking for that bull. Bull's got a name. You know, it's not to be a downer, but it is a little frustrating. Yeah, I remember someone saying that they walked up to a water hole here somewhere in Arizona,

and it's kind of like a dozen trail cans or something no boyd and i had boyd had a strip tag a couple years ago and and we were out there and when he says strip tag to tell what you mean by it's arizona strip it's in his 13 and 13b up north of the grand canyon and it's it is the as a density it's got more huge non-typicals mule deer than any other place on earth it's you know huge non-typicals, mule deer, than any other place on earth. It's just an amazing place. Lots of huge deer. The genetics are phenomenal.

And we were there, and Floyd drew in a really tough year. I mean, it had a really dry spring, dry summer, and the antler development just wasn't very good. There was one buck we had found. Let me pause you again, because this is an interesting point. I had never even heard of this till till we were talking earlier today it if you guys get a drought or like a dry spell in the right period of time you see that in the antlers of the animals no doubt yeah if it's if you don't get the rain right you know right before antlers drop and then certainly all the way through that growth phase if there's not green stuff growing then you know right before antlers drop and then certainly all the way through that growth

phase if there's not green stuff growing then you know the the elk are really susceptible to it but then up on the strip it's a it's a desert it's a high desert up there and if they don't get it up there and if they get a late spring it's cold they don't get any green up early you know those bucks just don't put on the development i mean it can be dramatic you know 20 percent you know, those bucks just don't put on the development. I mean, it can be dramatic, you know, 20%, you know. Yeah, I just never, you know, coming from, I've always lived in the north. You just never think of water as a limiting factor. Yeah. So anyways, so.

So Floyd drew on a dry year, right? And before we hear the rest of that story, let's take a quick break. Hey, folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. Let's take a quick break. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there, OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. The Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking. That's right. We're always talking about

OnX here on the MeatEater podcast now you guys in the great white north can be part of it be part of the excitement you can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service that's a sweet function as part of your membership you'll gain access

to exclusive pricing on products and services hand picked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. So anyways, there was one particular buck that Floyd passed on the third day. Third day, of course, I'm sitting here going, we need to shoot this deer.

We need to shoot this deer. Floyd's like, no, I think we might as well do better. Jesus Christ. I need to tell you, we need to shoot this deer. We need to shoot this deer. Floyd's like, no, I think we might as well do better. Jesus, Chris is complaining. I need to tell you, Floyd, that Chris has complained about hunting with you that you never want to shoot again. He's like to go and look around. It's bad. We're looking at this buck.

I'm thinking this buck's 190-inch typical. He's got one little point sticking out. We call it middle finger because his point's just sticking out like this. So we find middle finger coming off this ridge and we know he's going to hit this water hole he's got does and his does has got their heads down they're going to hit this water hole so we bust around the other side he's going to drop into a hole we're not going to be able to see him so we go right where we can see this this water tank and it was a game of fish catchment uh that was that's surrounded by pipe and uh that's a drinker there and then that drinker feeds into a cattle drinker well we're sure he's going to come

out to the cattle drinkers closer that way so we get over there we get set up and it's just gray light i mean the sun's just set but arizona you got 30 more minutes and we knew a bunch we saw a bunch of does coming off behind us and we know they're going to hit this game of fish water and they start jumping the fence into this game of fish thing, and the flashes are going off of the camera. I mean, it was like Britney Spears just showed up. You've got to be kidding me, man. 15 or 20 cameras, and every one of them's got a couple-minute delay.

It looked like fireflies. Yeah, just this poof, poof, poof. And peripheral vision, it just, I mean, is it Britney Spears? It could be. You know, I mean, it was amazing how many cameras were on that water hole and we could see seven or eight we didn't want to walk down to the water so we were just glassing them seeing them on the post you could see seven or eight of them but they were everywhere on that water and this and this water from the nearest gas station had to be three hours. Right.

Three hours to the nearest gas station. Wow. You know, that's how remote this place was, and there's that many cameras out there. See, that's like, just to bring this around to what we're, not what we're talking about, but to bring this around to the main subject I'm trying to talk about, is that's the kind of thing where when you're looking at these applications and you're going to apply for stuff that's the kind of thing you don't know right you know and so there's like for instance i drew a musk like i drew a muskox i had a muskox tag this year that

i went and hunted on but i drew the same tag on Nunavak Island in Alaska in 2010, I think I had the tag. I just put in like, oh, I'll go hunt muskox. Put in a unit knowing nothing about it, okay? And then later learn that that unit, by law, which it says nothing about this in the regs, but that unit, by law, you have to hire a transporter or a guide because the only place to land on Nunavak Island is in the town of McCoriuk.

And the town of McCoriuk happens to be a native corporation. It's Chupac Eskimo. You can't get on the island without landing on their land. And so they have a thing that if you're going to hunt out of there, you've got to hire one of them as a guide. So you put in your thing thinking like, oh, yeah, you you know you look at a map of the island it's all federal land you're like sweet public land muskox hunt but then the minute you start you draw the tag and you're like not quite man it's a little more complicated than that in fact you need a few

more thousand dollars if you're going to do this thing it's like hard to know that kind of stuff and so it kind of comes around like what we're talking about with chris being like uh doing a tag services and help people wade through all this stuff and so often people that do the permit draw game there's some units people want because they're just going to kill you have the potential to kill like a giant animal personally i'll tend to look as much at that's something i'm interested in like when i do my montana application i always put in like a unit i've never hunted in but i know it's like i someday want to kill a big mule deer and there's a big mule deer unit montana so i put that down at other times when i'm doing like a mountain goat unit where I don't really care like, you know

If I had like a record book mountain goat, it's not gonna yeah, it'd be like my potential record But musk ox this is not something that's gonna come up in conversation very often when I'm picking a mountain goat unit I'm thinking of where is it gonna be the most fun to hunt, right? You know, I mean like where is the best chance of seeing no other person around? You know, so there's all these different little things you're trying to weigh out. Yeah, I think that would be my number one piece of advice to serious hunters when it comes to the application game is pick out areas that have those dream hunts, you know, 270 in Montana for mule deer, you know, and 231 in Nevada for mule deer,

the Henrys in Utah, there's a strip in Arizona. But really... Is that kind of the big mule deer the Henry's in Arizona in in Utah there's a strip in Arizona but really that kind of the big mule deer round those are the big yeah we kind of missed the Poncegat and of course half of Colorado but but uh but look for areas that you know put up for those dream hunts but look for areas where you think you can draw a tag if you can come out west or if you live out west and hunt every year or every other year, look for those areas that you could hunt every year or every other year. Because I really do believe that a guy like Colorado is a classic. There's been a boon and croc of deer killed in every county in Colorado. I mean, there are some units that are far better than others, certainly for overall quality, but every one of them has the genetic

potential to produce a monster. And if a hunter were to pick a unit in Colorado that he could hunt every year every other year and come out and do that he will kill a monster buck long before the next guy ever draws you know one of the premier units yes before you accumulate you're like 18 points yeah at which point you've never even hunted mule deer for 18 years. You haven't hunted deer. You don't even know what the hell you're doing. Yeah.

That's right. Like, you just need to know what your goal is. Because if your goal is, like, whatever it is, that 190 or just a big mule deer that looks big to you, you don't need to go to the Henrys or to the Kaibab to do that. Right. Like you're saying, you can go to probably half of Wyoming and, you know, half of Colorado. I'm sure you've seen it you know guiding elk hunters I mean every one of them thinks they want to kill a monster and then

you show them a 310 bull 320 bull and all of a sudden their whole idea of a monster just got redefined because that bull is a monster yeah you know that they actually get one in front of them yeah oh no where I got it we would like pass on a five point the first day and then on the second day they shoot four points I guess Arizona the gila in arizona might be a little different yeah yeah but uh i think way too many guys are looking for what you know the magic hunt and the magic draw the magic unit and not realizing they're trying to forgetting the fact that hunting skills are something are only acquired through experience you're not going to get it sitting you know you can read Western Hunter Magazine all you want.

You know, I'd love to think you could learn everything you need to learn, but you can't. Well, because you guys don't give GPS coordinates in there. No, we don't even give units. We don't even talk about units. I always feel like calling you and asking you where some of these articles happen, but I feel like it would be unfair. Yeah, I might tell you if you put it on the podcast.

You know, we were talking about um uh i'm addressing the listener not you guys well unfortunately there's like long shot units and then there's like within the draw spectrum okay you have long shot units where you might have a half percent, quarter percent, one percent, whatever chance to draw on the tag. And then you have something that you'll hear the term an undersubscribed unit. Undersubscribed units where your state's fish and game agency says, let's they say, OK, we're about 100 elk tags in this area. But traditionally, only 75, 80 guys ever even put in right so it's we'll say it's like a guaranteed draw meaning theoretically you could not get it if interest

suddenly spiked but just every year not enough people do but there's no over-the-counter option so if you don't hit the deadline and fill out your application you won't get the tag some states will sell those leftovers what they call the surplus they'll sell them on a first-come first-served basis some states that's just it it's like if you don't put in you don't get it and so a lot of times you hear of a guy it'll be summertime this happens me all the time you hear from some guy in June or July is gonna go elk hunting this year and you always want to be like well you already met like you were already missed out on 90% of the state's opportunities in the states he's just didn't do your thing on time it's not that you can't go if you

put it in because you can like you're saying you can go hunt you can go hunt elk in Colorado every year this thing when when you and I, when Chris, when you and I have spoken about hunting Arizona, your feelings about Arizona were like, hunt coos deer in Arizona. Because you can spend all this time trying to get a mule deer tag in Arizona. Meanwhile, you can go on a deer hunt every year. Every year.

The unit you and I both had this year were 100% success on the draw. Yeah. I mean, 100%. I mean, there's, we have probably 10 or 12 Coos Deer units every year that go undersubscribed. On the first and second choice, I mean, you could draw them on a third choice. So you could hunt the thing every year.

Every year. Yeah, so like doing tags and lottery draws, it's not just about that you're in 18 years or whatever gonna like get this chance to go hunt like a big horn it's also just like are you able to hunt or not just go hunting yeah it's because i i've just i've watched so many guys over the years that their their hunting skills just basically deteriorate you know because they're sitting around waiting for a magical tag that may or may never come you know and even the best units even that you know even the strip as good as that is and as much hard work as everybody puts into that

the success on the hunt each year is only around 60 so guys wait literally you know a hunter's lifetime for a tag and only a little better than half of those hunters actually kill a deer and of those those that kill a deer maybe half of them kill a deer that they dreamed of so 70 of the people that draw that tag go away in some sense of the word disappointed you think a lot of them don't show up no i go some of those every year because you know with uh an organization i work with the outdoor experience for all where people can donate tags to us if they can't come uh it usually runs two to five percent you know for draw there really are guys that are out there hunting that are not just can't make it for one reason or another you know whether it's you know just had a new baby in the house or you know their daughter decided to get

married right in the middle of hunting season or some travesty like that but uh yeah it does happen the guys just don't even show up you know and you had it didn't kill one right yeah no we never shot twice i'll say twice you've had two terrible lifetimes what happens when you go what happens when you go up there you know we look at a lot of deer didn't you used to fly that area line yeah we flew it a lot i've looked at a lot of big deer i've been involved with some big deer that have been taken up there the deer we passed it you know, 190-inch net buck. But when you go up there, it's a special place to me. And, you know, in hindsight, I would have probably shot the 190-inch deer.

But you never know when you might see a 230, 240-type deer. That year was particularly, there was a few deer shot in that category, but very limited. Did you see any lions up there? Some, not a whole bunch not a whole bunch but when you flew it you flew it looking for mule deer right and saw lots of bigs well actually i went up there with knowing there was five large deer there and saw three deer that would break the 230 mark so when you know they're there and you know the place has that kind of genetic capability it's really hard for me to shoot a smaller deer and i don't you know chris like chris and i have some fun with it but i really don't ever feel like

i need to shoot anything and and i you know i kind of enjoy that it's uh i think we about gave nate an aneurysm on that hunt to me it's so refreshing actually to you know to hear you say that you know that you can just go out there and just have a great time with such high stakes and come away with no deer and be like, that was awesome. We certainly get to hunt the whole hunt. I'm always teasing. How long is the hunt?

That was nine days, 10 days, 10 days. It's not a hard hunt at all. Other than the mental aspect, but the country for the most part, it's just not, it's not that challenging.

You mean it's not a lot of, it's not like a lot of up and down but a sage and cedar country yeah you just you're pounding pounding your tires take a beating but you know you know i make fun of floyd because they tease him about not shooting that deer but kind of think about all the stories we'd have missed out on all the storytelling time we had it would have been almost a travesty if we shot that deer on the third day we'd have lost six six days for the yeah one thing that i've found myself doing and i never did like i i only chris i've known you the whole time i've done it only for a handful of years started applying for tags and states where I don't have deep connections. So I'd always done, I lived in Montana, have family there still, have family in Alaska,

so I've always done the Montana and Alaska draws, and it was kind of like hunting my home ground. Right. I've only in the last few years begun applying for states where I don't even, where I'll have to figure it out once I, if I draw a tag. Right. You know, where I just don't know what's going on. But now I pretty much do virtually all Western states. And I have a way where I sort of think under your guidance a little bit.

I think of some as being just start now and accumulate points. And then maybe someday when you're an old man you'll have like these amazing trips right you know and then the other states you think of as like your opportunity states that you're just gonna go and do yeah so like I have like from my understanding if I'm right like Nevada you're just playing a long game it's a long wait yeah Arizona can's a long wait. Yeah. Arizona can be a long wait for a lot of stuff.

At least Arizona, we have a max bonus point pool. Yeah, but how are you going to get there? You can't get there. Yeah, with mule deer, it sucks. You know, if you hunt the strip, if somebody's listening right now and they haven't ever applied for the strip and you're a non-resident, don't even waste your time. You literally never draw it in your entire life. Because what percent of those tags go to the max point holders? 20% go to the max bonus point holders. And how many points those guys have? Right

now, I think it's 17 or so. But the biggest problem for non-residents is 10%. We have a 10% maximum for non-residents. So there's of the of the tags go to the max bonus point pool only 10 of the total tags can be non-residents so a lot of non-residents when we started the bonus point system years ago they started applying back then so there's a very large number of non-residents sitting in the max bonus point pool yeah so by the time the 20 is reached the 10 is already reached so technically a non non-resident doesn't even have a chance unless he's in the max bonus point pool. I mean, you can be two points off. You can be applying for the last 16 years, and you probably still will not draw that in your lifetime.

Considering the fact that you're probably already in your mid-40s, you know, if you've got that many points. Yeah. You know, in your lifetime, your hunting lifetime lifetime we're talking under 25 30 years so what do you think like getting away from the the practical matter of getting points what in your opinion is sort of the like the cultural effect of that system is that area like like take the every time of the the strip area that area is that area so limited and water and stuff you can't you couldn't just start issuing over-the-counter tags for any buck would you damage the resource oh yeah destroy it up there which it was exactly why we're in the predicament we're in right now well there's a lot of speculation to why inflate I'll have a

ton of input on this but there was a time in the 50s and the 60s when the strip was over the counter they had a huge number of deer up there it had a very large number of deer and then you know it was a combination of effects of over hunting there was probably some predation but back then i'm probably i'm guessing they probably killed the snot out of predators back then so it was just over hunting um they knocked the deer population down to a point where game and fish had to come in and start setting a tag quota. But that population had been suppressed to the point where it's never been able to recover back in those days. Yeah, so.

They actually suppressed it to the point where predators then did become a problem. You know, once a prey base gets so low oh yeah to bounce back and get above that level where it where the predators consume so many that it's holding the population down yeah i can see that like they're not able to swamp the predators with right just like keep them all fed yeah yeah they can't they can't drop enough fawns you know to keep all the fed the predators fed and the strip i mean now what do it 65 tags is it for the. And the strip, I mean, now, what are we at, 65 tags? Is it for the strip? And the strip is, I don't know, how many million square miles?

65 tags. Yeah. So, yeah, so if you just said, all right, we're going to do just the opportunity, and had it be that any Joe below could go buy a tag for that area, you'd feasibly just kill every deer deer like kill every buck you know there's just not a chance you see it it's so obviously true it's like like everybody talking about bighorns i think you and i had this conversation before like there's not a thousand bighorn tags in the country no not now no i'd like to know how many thousands of people apply for

less than a thousand bighorn tags but you could could, yeah, if you just were to give out bighorn tags, you'd issue hundreds of thousands of more tags than there are bighorn sheep in existence. Literally. That's one thing people ask me all the time. Sometimes people will take for granted that I think that people who have no desire to like to go shoot a deer should go shoot a deer so I don't I don't understand people I was like so you think everybody should

go kill a deer or else you shouldn't eat any meat like well one problem off the top of my head is we would immediately have a 200 million deer deficit yeah if everyone in this country went out and shot a deer it's actually you know I was looking you know about a year's joe rogan you know he's on the cover of what's it peterson's hunting he's talking about the new the phenomena you know the the the hipster hunting movement you know and how that's you know i i wonder at times just what kind of effect is it going to have in states where you have you know over the counter tags probably going to draw us that's going to almost have to you know when, when you look into, you know, Oregon and, you know, California's got a lot of private land, but, you know, Idaho,

where you've got over-the-counter tags, and, you know, large parts of Montana, you know, if all these people do go out and start hunting, you know, we all think that's a wonderful thing, but at some point I'm wondering how wonderful is it? No, that's what my brother, he like, when people talk about hunter recruitment, he can't stand the idea of it. You know? Yeah. But he's not looking at it from, I mean, it's a whole other conversation, but he's not looking at it from the legal end of just how hunters are just going to get trounced in the legislature.

Right. You know, like as the percentage of Americans who hunt shrinks and shrinks and people keep talking about like the new breed of hunters but when they talk about hunter increase in recent years when they say like there's a nine percent increase that's not that doesn't mean nine percent nine percent more of the america population's hunting they're talking about a nine percent increase of like one percent of the population you know yeah we're just so it's like i don't know like i don't know are they like how many more tags are actually getting sold right now than five years ago it's a great question because uh you know i because i agree with you i think most of this increase in in hunter uh in number of hunters applying is just most of us are applying in multiple states now the game of

fish departments have gone to online applications you know the the new generation of hunters just totally into the online thing they're allowing you to use a credit card now or you used to have to write a check and i think the bonus point thing is a huge thing because it doesn't feel like money wasted no people think they've got something when they get a point i feel that way that's why like alaska new mexico don't offer bonus points and i always feel like one like you got a good chance of drawing something because you're in there with everybody. But you also feel like you didn't come away with some tangible good. The best odds of drawing a sheep tag, a goat tag, or a moose tag are all in Idaho.

But Idaho doesn't have bonus points. So people don't apply there because they don't feel like they're getting something for their money. They got to buy a hunting license and they got to front quite a bit of money. But they're not getting a tangible asset when it's all said and done. Like somehow you can will these points to your kids when it's all said and done. People just don't apply. Therefore, Idaho's got the best odds of drawing any one of those tags. By how much?

Oh, you know, on sheep you're looking at anywhere from 3% to 7% chance in some units. Wow. You know, anywhere in most of the states like Arizona, New Mexico, well, New Mexico is terrible for different reasons, but Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, you know, you're looking at half percent to one percent odds. So, you know, roughly 14, 15 times better. And it's all about, when they don't have they

don't have really big sheep too so that doesn't help them either yeah but uh um but yeah it's just the fact they're not getting a bonus point people don't want to they don't want to put the money up yeah for the listeners i'll say that the three the three animals that are just the three animals that that are single percentage point odds of hunting are things that most people aren't interested in like the most people aren't interested in hunting anyways unless you get really into hunting is like moose sheep and goats so like moose big orange sheep mountain goats um it's just like you're not to draw unless you're if you're an alaska resident you'll be able to hunt mountain goats often but it's just the kind of thing where you might get the

opportunity once or twice in your lifetime you know in the west to hunt those animals um compared to everything else whitetail mule deer elk you know. But what's funny is we keep talking about these limited draw things in the west, and meanwhile they got areas in the east where they can't get people to shoot enough deer. There's like, it's like there's two conversations going on. You know what I mean? Like one hand we're sitting here talking about

all these plans to try to find a way to get a chance to hunt a mountain goat. And then the other hand, they're thinking about overturning 130 years of wildlife conservation efforts and making it you can go back to selling deer meat on the market as a way to try to get people interested in killing white-tailed deer yeah it's a crazy it's just hard to tell it's hard to tell where things are headed and i fret about it all the time like i fret about um what the ramifications might be

if we do in fact get a bunch of new hunters what what do we owe those people as far as opportunity goes you know like how hard should should fishing game agencies be sitting back and saying, all right, never mind growing animals to full maturity. Never mind growing animals to trophy size. We should just allow people to start killing deer. And it wound up being like where I grew up in Michigan. If you killed a two and a half year old deer, it was people came from miles away to look at that thing. Yeah. It just didn't happen.

I have no idea what that means for the deer herd. Yeah, it's a... You wind up with a very skewed... One, you wind up in these situations, like where I grew up, it is like we're talking about over-the-counter, maximum opportunity. Everyone that wants can go buy a buck tag. And you'll sit and you'll see 30 to 40 does for every buck you see and you never see a buck who makes it past

definitely like I was saying two and a half really that's kind of unfair but like a three and a half or four and a half year old deer no way. Right, mature buck. No way and so it's like that's where opportunity got it was is like deer are born one to one. Yeah. So when you're sitting there and you watch 20 does walk by for every buck you see, those things are born in a one to one ratio. Yeah. You know?

And that's like, sort of like opportunity management, in my mind, run amok. Right. You have a very false, like you have a very manipulated population of deer there you know and on the other hand is some of the stuff that we're talking about like certain units in arizona where you got to apply 18 years to draw the tag is way limited but it's probably a more realistic you're probably looking at a herd of elk that probably resembles like a pre-contact herd of elk yeah it's more likely a pre-European contact herd of elk where you've got elk that are living to be nine years old.

Right. And there's a bunch of bulls. Yeah. And you've got old, mature bulls that are genetically superior, passing on their genes, you know, because they are the big, dominant, strong animal. They made all the right decisions. Yeah.

And so you've got you know whereas in the the the maximum opportunity areas you've got spikes doing the breeding who knows what their genetic potential really is i mean i don't mean just big antlers i mean just survivability yeah you know do they have disease resistance are they able to live even could they possibly even live to four or five years old you know you've got those kind of deers those kind of bucks passing on their genes you know as opposed to a buck that's survived six years of hard winters he knows where to you knows where and how to winter uh you know he's got the genetic makeup to be a survivor yeah you know you end up with and it's got to hurt the population another thing you hear people talking about is it winds up putting reproductive stress on young animals.

Young animals that wouldn't be putting energy into breeding become breeding contenders and go to breed. But I see both sides of this. Like I do with every issue. Every wildlife issue is so complicated. I definitely see both sides of it because just asking myself, if we're going in that direction, do I really want to be in a situation where I can only hunt once every four or five years? Yeah. No way, man.

But if you take a close look at the North American big game model, it was never about managing opportunity for hunters. It was about managing wildlife. And we've all got to keep our eye on that That's really what it's all about. Yeah, it wasn't like yeah, no I see you're saying no one ever looked at it and thought we owe we need to have these animals so people can shoot Oh, yeah, it was all about the wildlife and I think whenever we decided that that's like here in Arizona our habitat is It's so much different than say the Midwest or somewhere even in the Northwest particularly but we just don't have the density of wildlife to fulfill the desires of the population

base here in Arizona as residents much less with the non-resident factors so I mean we just it's it's a rare opportunity if you're one of the lucky ones that gets to go hunting and otherwise we just need to take care of the resource. Yeah because the same thing you guys were talking about like where the water you'll see the impact of water on the growth of an animal I mean you're living in like a like a water limited. In the reproductions the same way in some years and some years we've had years that were so droughty that the elk didn't they didn't rut or it was marginal at best and then a lot of those cows

didn't take and didn't reproduce just because it was so you know it was a marginal year for them to survive much less to carry an offspring yeah one thing you guys touched on a little while ago that was really something i see a lot of or see every year hunters that put in for these once in a lifetime hunts and then finally draw this once-in-a-lifetime hunt, they really don't have that skill set that, say, their friend or neighbor that is hunting some species every year. Because those skills are, you know, they're going to pass from species to species. But we had a good friend here a few years ago draw a strip tag, and a really good, guy and i don't

think he'd been deer hunting over a decade hired one of the very best guides in the state and they have the most miserable hunt and opportunities to take great deer on multiple occasions and just couldn't close the deal because the skill set wasn't there limited by what what? Marksmanship or just ability to move? Getting the safety off on time to get the bullets in the gun. You know, just all those things that a guy that hunts a lot takes for granted. It's no guy in the world can overcome

your inability to function under stress. Yeah. And people think, I'll just go hire this outfitter over here. These guys have done a great job. And everybody that hunts with them is successful well you got to do your part and a lot of these guys show up with no skill sets they can't pull it off hey folks exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada and boy my goodness do we hear

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As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit OnXMaps.com slash meet. OnXMaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all that's a big deal i married guiding archery elk hunters especially in new mexico we always got a we always got a lot of midwesterners you know guys who are whitetail hunters and the first day

they'd be a stressed out mess you know bulls are screaming they're just you know they're not sure which way to start pointing their bow but by the the second day, they settle down, you know, and they're starting to get a little accustomed to it. And by the time you got a bull inside 30 yards, that was my favorite client because he knew he'd shot so many whitetail deer. He knew how to hold that pin. He knew how to pick a spot. He knew how to make a shot.

You know, and how many guys in Arizona I know that, you know, they just freak out because it's the first time they've actually drawn their bow on an animal in eight years. You know, since the last time they drew an elk tag. Yeah, so experience is invaluable. That's why I think every year I'm trying to draw areas. I'm looking at areas where I can draw over and over again. You know, in Utah, you know, I'm going to go to an area, hopefully this year than I hunted last year, that had hunters everywhere. But there was deer everywhere too.

You know, there wasn't big, huge deer, but there was decent, you know, just good-looking four points. I could find good-looking four points. But just get out there and even for myself, just more experience, more experience, more experience. Because then all of a sudden there was going to be a 190-inch buck one of these days. And, you know, hopefully, more experience, more experience. Because then all of a sudden there was going to be a 190-inch buck one of these days. And, you know, hopefully, you know, gained enough experience shooting at smaller bucks to, you know,

make a lot happen on that big buck. What is your – I asked you to do this for me when putting together the guidebook series we have coming out. But do a thing like Denim's Picks. Walk through what you feel – like one of the dream tag scenarios. So like walk through if you were going to have to say sort of like around the country,

what are like a handful of things that if someone wants to do big game draws, what are some of the handful of long-term goal, life-altering things they should be doing? You know, if I had to pick the dream hunts, it'd go by species. I'd say bighorn sheep in the river the river break country missouri breaks country of montana i mean that's that's the one you put in for yeah i mean i always put in for like like 680 oh really along with everybody you got to i mean you got to i mean it is the

i'd almost rather i wouldn't say i wouldn't rather hunt sheep, not hunt sheep in Montana than not draw that tag. But I'd just rather have that tag. What's funny about it, when you look, like, everybody knows, because people always have this conversation, like, 680, 680. Everyone knows 680. So there's a website you were showing me, Hunter's Trailhead, where you can go in and put in, like, how many bonus points you have, non-resident, resident. And it'll give you an idea over the last handful of years what your odds would have been and then it doesn't project though right no it doesn't project it shows you what your odds would have been in the previous years with with x number of points um when i'll go look at those things like you can put in 680 and realize you have 0.3% chance. Right. You know?

And you look at the unit right next to it, and it'll be 0.6% chance. You're like, that's twice, you know? Yeah. That's twice as good. It's twice as good. It's three times. Well, still put in 680 because people just put down 680, you know,

because it's like the famous unit, man. I think sometimes you just got to, you got to believe that when it's your turn, it's your turn. That's the thing, man. You go like, the area is so cool. The animals are so cool. You can find them.

Right. Like, you're not going to, I shouldn't say that. If you're an ambitious person who plans well, you're not going to draw that not going to get a ram. Right. You know. Yeah. The question might become whether you get like a giant or something but you're gonna go there and be like wow there's a big horn sheep yeah and that'd be

one you know i would shoot a ram on that hunt i mean but i guarantee you i'd probably if i didn't see a 200 inch kind of ram i'd you know i'd be shooting 175 inch ram on the last day it's a long season it's a long season you got tons of time and you can just look at a lot of sheep a lot of sheep you know in arizona everybody would think you know your first instinct would be elk but honestly i'd have to say well desert bighorn sheep you know in arizona you gotta you gotta go after desert bighorn down here and and down here honestly even though units 22 and and 24b are the units where they're killing the big sheep that everybody sees, but they're generally hunting those on the lake country.

Like on the big reservoir. Yeah, the big reservoir where you're going in a boat. The only thing I regret about it, and I drew a 24B tag back when it was north and south. It was just one unit. And the only thing i regret over that is there's areas in arizona like down in the cabeza prieta uh down it's down on the mexican border where you can go for an entire month and you will not see another human being if you choose not to i mean you are out there you might see some drug runners but that's about it but you are in the

wildest of wild country and you may may not kill a 180-inch ram. You're not going to probably kill a 180-inch ram, but you're going to have an adventure of a lifetime. That's the tag I would take. Yeah. I would rather have that tag than the other way around. Yeah. Unfortunately, I drew a great tag and had a great hunt, but now I have to live like a little league dad now. My son's got 14 or 15 points,

and I'm going to have to live vicariously through him, and hopefully he'll draw one of those tags, and we'll get to go do an epic 25-day hunt. But that's an interesting point within the question I already asked you. How old is your kid? He's 21. So he's already got that many points. Yeah, he's like...

So he'll hunt bighorns, absolutely. Because I remember I was talking to the guy one of the guys at Hunting Fool I had a conversation with him about this. He was saying I can't remember what he said if you're 30 and you start doing this he says you have a very good chance

of hunting two bighorn sheep. Yeah at 30. If you're 30 years old and you start doing it and you're doing it in all the worthwhile states you'll have a chance. You might go on two bighorn sheep hun Yeah at 30. If you're 30 years old and you start doing it and you're doing it in all the state you need all the worthwhile states you'll have a chance you might go on two bighorn sheep hunts before you die. Between Colorado and Arizona you've got a decent chance of getting a tag in Colorado if you're 30 years old if you play their game and in you know Nevada you know Nevada's a bit of a gamble but like like Montana they square your points

So if you stick with it long enough you might have it, you know You're gonna get to the point where you haven't seven eight percent chance every year and hopefully, you know It happens before you're 60. Yeah, but But you know the one thing in Arizona Antelope our antelope are just outrageous You know, we just the genetics down here just off the charts So I'd have to put antelope right up there at the top just the genetics down here are just off the charts so i'd have to put antelope right up there at the top too is that is that like a pretty quality hunt

like um like low pressure and it's it is except for the fact like we've already talked about the you know we call it gang hunting you know antelope are pretty visible so they are susceptible to having about five or six guys out running around covering lots of country looking at bucks so it's not quite as remote as you'd like it to be just because they're just too doggone visible but to put a really beautiful animal on the wall arizona's tough to beat it's just impossible to beat but uh in new mexico is great for that as well but colorado for mule deer is is the one that's still a mystery i say a mystery to me it's not a mystery there's just a lot of great units but that's the

one state where guys really need to be focused on mule deer i had one tag there i had a tag there a couple years ago on unit 21 and i saw a buck there in the archery hunt he was down on private i never even had a chance to kill him but this buck was i saw him for probably 20 seconds but probably 33 34 inches wide had enough points that i couldn't even figure out exactly what was going on but i mean definitely a buck that was north of 220 just a monster in an area in a year that wasn't any that great and 21's got a bit of reputation but it's not it's it's over uh it's it's definitely not what it used to be. But Colorado for mule deer would be, and then it's, unfortunately, a lot of my dreams revolve around mule deer hunting, you know, considering I haven't, I'm like you, I've never killed a big mule deer.

I mean, a truly big buck. I mean, I killed a couple of ants. That's the only animal I care about getting a big one of. I know, and I've had a good tag in Nevada, or a good tag in Wyoming, a good tag in Colorado. I've had a couple of tags over my lifetime, and I thought, this is it. And it just doesn't happen. It hasn't happened yet. But Nevada 231 for mule deer, the Henry Mountains.

But you're not going to draw the Henry Mountain tag no no that's a dream that's another one where you just you're better off you'll draw a sheep tag before you'll draw that

most likely you'll draw a sheep tag before you draw a chance to hunt mule deer in the Henry Mountains yeah if you really want to hunt the Henrys you need to

go focus yeah go focus focus on your career and buy an auction tag it's probably you got a better chance of you know focusing on your career and making a bunch of money and go buy a tag than you do a drawn one yeah do you put in for moose tags in the west i put in utah you know back when back when utah limited you to one limited entry species uh i chose moose you know

so i've got 15 or 18 points but i was just looking at my odds back when the applications are due and you know i'm in that two percent range you know so so 15 or 18 years of applying yeah for a non-resident you're you're down there in the the two percent range but you know you look at this state like you know like idaho you know you and i've talked about idaho there's units there that you know your odds are eight or ten percent at that point i started getting like when i see something like that like with the number of bonus points i have in montana on mountain goats i'm running into eight nine percent you might actually draw that thing then yeah you know yeah that's why

i'd put moose in idaho is is something that if guys really want to do. Is that what you do? You know, because what they do in non-residence, we have to choose between elk. You have to choose between moose, goat, and sheep. You can apply for one of those three. But if you apply for one of those three, then you can't apply for the limited entry deer, elk, and antelope tags. So the past couple of years, I've been doing the deer, elk, and antelope tags so the past couple years I've been doing the deer elk and antelope tags which I'm 0 for 3 so they've been the same odds I used to it's one of the other

there it's one of the other but you can also go hunt over the counter you can hunt over the counter there for for elk and I think honestly some of the most overlooked you know the most overlooked opportunities in the entire west are over the counter units or over the counter or you know one or zero points or one point and is it for that reason you think that because some units are just the draw unit and everybody's just focused there that the unit next door is like yeah those animals don't know and but nobody pays attention to them yeah and you look at the you know the resources we have you know the magazines you know they all tout the big units and everybody thinks the other units just have trash. I mean I had an antelope tag in Wyoming this past year and we're running around looking for antelope and I stopped the truck and there was a point it was about 100 yards out so I kind of walked out the

point I was looking over a huge vast area for just to see if I could find any herds of antelope and I just happened to look down to see where the road was going to go down this ridge line and I was looking over a huge, vast area just to see if I could find any herds of antelope. And I just happened to look down to see where the road was going to go down this ridgeline, and I see a spot moving in the middle of the road, and I throw my binoculars up, and there's a mule deer walking down the road that I can tell from its body is enormous. And I could see it had antlers, but it was probably a mile away. So I run to my truck, grab my spotting scope, and I put my spotting scope up, and there's standing one of the largest mule deer I've ever seen in my entire life. This thing's like, I told Kyle who was with me, I said, Kyle, I said, I think this deer might be 38 inches.

And he's like, no way. So we go running down, we drive down there, and he dove off into a canyon, and we got to that spot, and we walked walked out and i'm looking way down the canyon thinking that deer's got to be running and then meanwhile i see kyle throw the camera up and uh and i'm looking what's he filming i look and there's that deer standing there 30 yards away and he wasn't 37 but he's 32 33 wide tall out in the middle of nowhere antelope country and i come to find out it's a totally it's a general unit oh is general unit it's a general unit deer season ended two days before there's bucks walking right down the middle of the road now i had right across the highway i had one of their hardest to draw deer tags the

year before i mean it literally right across the highway from where this was i never saw a deer of that caliber not even close to that caliber during my hunt yeah and it took me eight years to draw that tag and i could have drawn this one in one year you know you know yannis uh his favorite unit in colorado his favorite like mule deer unit we were looking at hunting fool and i and i took a picture of their description of his unit which is not a glowing description i took a picture and texted it to him he wrote back i hope they never change that it was just like basically almost like that yeah don't bother yeah i think you you got to get all of those resources to figure out where not to apply at times if you're going to follow you know the strategy of i want

to hunt every year you know but uh so i't know if I really answered your question on those premier tags yet. No, no, it was a good sentence. And then what are the things, like, if people just want to go hunting, you just want to, like, one of these years when time is right, you just want to go out, hunt the west, maybe get to go for two different species. It's your big chance. What are the states?

I'll tell you what I tend to say just based on friends and own experiences. I'm always like, if you want to go and have where you're going to see deer, you're not going to get a big one, like you're going to see deer you're not going to get a big one but you're going to see plenty of deer there's plenty plenty of tag opportunities like montana is great for mule deer like if you want to just go and have a good hunt and see stuff and i always point out that um colorado's got a lot of elk tags, a lot of elk. No giants, but you can go and have a solid hunt.

Wyoming antelope. I think Wyoming antelope is still one of the most underrated hunts in the West because you're not going to go see a bunch of huge bucks, but you're going to see a lot of antelope. Tags are easy to get. You can get doe tags. And it's still an adventure when you're in Wyoming you're in the middle of nowhere

no matter where you are Wyoming is just an adventure so I'd say Wyoming antelope Arizona coos deer like we kind of already talked about I think is still the most underrated big game species in the west no one even knows what it is

I didn't know what one was I thought people were screwing up and saying keys deer like the white tails they got in the florida keys they coos here i'm like yeah there's a little shit and things when you're out fishing in florida there's not a there is nothing there is not a single aspect of your game that you don't have to be extremely good at to hunt coos deer and to effectively hunt coos deer yeah and you can draw it every year um i mean you've got to be in good shape you've got to be able to shoot you've got to be able to pack you got to be able to glass i mean it's uh it's way it's just way underrated um i think you know new mexico mule deer is kind of the same way you know you've got

there's 2a 2b and 2c up in the north central part of the state that everybody focuses on because that's the only ones the magazines talk about. But New Mexico's got good genetics from top to bottom. And when I say good, I mean, you can hope to shoot 150, 160-inch deer, you know, just a really good solid four-point. Yeah. And probably not see near as many people as you might on a Colorado hunt. Nevada, Nevada's got great genetics in every unit of the state. Now, there's some that are just absolutely, no doubt, better than others. But that's a difficult state to get a permit in, though, right?

Well, some units are. Some units are really easy. Okay. Now, when I say easy, you can probably draw one every second or third year. Gotcha. And for a lot of people, you know know every two or three years is about all they can probably afford from a vacation standpoint so drawing one every second or third year is you know probably exactly what fits into their life schedule yeah one state we haven't talked about

all it's kind of funny state with draws is like the alaska setup where there's a couple things, like if you're a non-resident, musk ox, you have to draw. But it's funny because every species there, there's over-the-counter opportunities for and draw opportunities. And the draw opportunities tend not to be quality or abundance to animals. It tends to be the closer it is to the highway system, the more there's a chance it's a draw. So the best hunts in Alaska aren't the draw hunts, necessarily. Right.

You know? It's just, like, when you see a draw unit there, it just means, like, yeah, you can drive to it. Right. So we've got a limit, you know? Yeah. Like hunting caribou on the Kenai. It's, like, it's accessible.

So you've got to draw that. Meanwhile, you can go kill, like, a bag limit of 10 caribou in the Western Brooks range. It's just a whole different system up there. I still do the draws there because there's a handful of things. There's those elk. I guess I'm not experimental, but introduced elk herds is draw only. Muskox is draw only. The best doll sheepds as draw only muskox as draw only the best

doll sheep units are draw only not the best yeah maybe the best doll sheep units are draw only and I kind of drew the best of the best

get that silver spoon going yeah see I get my tags free because the state they just want to see you come on through the tourism board

kind of perpetuate that rumor the governor hand delivers them yeah they bring them they just mail me whatever i want but still the other thing i think that in most people have kind of figured this out but i think it needs to be reiterated is pick up a bow i mean just today's archery equipment you know and you've got most major cities anyways you've got good pro shops you can learn to shoot a bow pretty quick uh it takes a long time to get really proficient but it's fun and the opportunities for archers you know still the the best in the west you know that's something i don't i wish we wouldn't have waited so long into this to touch on that is there is just an unbelievable amount of archery

opportunity yeah you know and in arizona in january you can come out and hunt deer over the counter in the middle of the rut we got javelina tags that they have leftovers for every year coyote season's open lion hunting's open uh quail season quail season and dove season are open. Basically, it's got fur and feathers. There's a legal means of killing it and hunting it in Arizona in January. It's a beautiful time to be in the desert. But, yeah, archery opportunities are still some of the most underutilized in the country.

Of course, there's probably some bow hunters are going to send me a nasty gram for even promoting that. Promoting it, yeah. But what's interesting, I read in Eastman's, one of those issues you were just talking about today, that in Colorado now, the archery hunters are equaling the success rate of the rifle hunters for elk. Is that right? Yeah, because they're hunting in the rut, and so you can hear them. And so it's just that much easier to find them, know where the rifle hunter can't find them and again with today's equipment i mean everybody's getting pretty good what about season length

is it is that like is the bow season way longer in colorado way longer yeah it's a whole month this thing like in montana man it'd be like bow hunting there that season opened like september 2nd september 3rd sometimes and it would go you hunt you get all of september first couple weeks of october you know all like the run's long yeah and then it's just you just go and go you get sick of going yeah you know you can wear yourself out it's like like bow hunting, it's like, oh man, another weekend, you know what I mean? You realize you bow hunted out seven weekends in a row. You know what I mean? It's a lot of hunting you can get off a bow.

Yeah. But you know, you see most archers, you know, they're definitely a high level, high level skill set group of guys, the ones who are true archers. Did you see, I've never met a good archer that didn't shoot a rifle oh yeah it's just there you know that's a that's definitely a the guys that are serious about it

are a click above and 99 of them if they had an opportunity with a rifle would take that also you know it's not like they're diehard archers that i'm thinking of yeah these are just guys that want an opportunity yeah yeah my brother as far as the bow hunting, gun hunting thing goes, he just has this very, like, this internal battle all the time where he doesn't feel like, he doesn't feel good to shoot something with a rifle. He's a bow hunter, you know what I mean? But at the same time, it just doesn't mean anything to

him you know he says it's like a harvest for me like to shoot something my wife was like a harvest it's like i'm just shooting me you know for the freezer um but at the same time he has this like hatred for his bone which he actually loves because the efficacy and wound loss is so much higher with a bow and arrow so he's's like, it feels so much better. But at the same time, he goes, I almost hate myself for doing it. Like, sometimes I have this weird thought that I wish that somehow I couldn't bow hunt anymore. So I didn't have to have the struggle of it. Like, I love it.

But then you just have to live with this fact that you're going to have a higher rate of wound loss. You know, like the efficacy of a rifle is just in the right hands. You know, the efficacy of a rifle is just in the right hands you know the efficacy of a rifle is great and there's just so much room for error on bows and they factored that stuff in man you know they factored that stuff in when they set out when they allocate tags you know well they they're definitely going to move eventually these game and fish departments are going to understand that the success rate with this archery equipment and the level and quality of these hunters is dramatically different than it was 10 years ago. There's just no question about it.

I don't consider myself an archer. I utilize the archery system to get a permit. And I'm always amazed at how effective they are as a as a tool if you know everything goes right in the right hands but when you look at a rifle hunter I mean there's no hardly any excuse to make a mistake with it still happens yeah absolutely yeah we honestly never had this conversation earlier we were trying to find a way like like many editors, and I know, Chris, you have, is like a thing that everybody asks now is like, what shots too far? What's too far with a rifle?

You can't define it. Like I got a friend who teaches, when we were having this conversation, I was pointing out, I got a friend who is an instructor. He's a Marine Corps sniper and a sniper instructor. I'm not going to go say to him what's too far for him to shoot because he is going to, at 600 yards, he's going to call his shot better than I'm going to call it

at 200 yards. It's all about the competition. So it winds up being like, it's so hard to define because you have to, like I've struggled with the definition and the best I've come up with is

it's too far when there's a question in your mind about whether you're going to hit it where you want to or not. I would say that is a great definition. And I used to, when I first started hunting the West, particularly hunting antelope, we would shoot an antelope basically to see if you'd hit it. You're probably really safe. And I now realize that that is is even though it wasn't that far it was three i remember my brother shooting a antelope that we paced off at 309 yards when we first moved to montana and it was like you there's nowhere in mission you can go and see

309 yards it was unfathomable to me you know they, that he did it. And now I think like at 300 yards, when the conditions are right, you know where that thing is going. But when we were shooting, so at that time, 300 yards was too far. Because if it wasn't, we shouldn't have been surprised when that antelope tipped over. There should be no element of, holy cow, you hit it. Yeah. You know? Whenever the thought runs through your mind that I'm going to shoot at that animal instead of shoot that animal. it. Yeah. You know? Whenever the thought runs through your mind that I'm going to shoot at that animal

instead of shoot that animal. Yeah. You know? You know, you're making a mistake. You know, it's just, and the animals deserve more than that. We all have taken our share of stupid shots. Oh, yeah.

And I'm not saying I'm even done doing it. Because it just, you get caught up in the moment. You're right. You know? Get excited. But yeah, I think that's it. I watch so much but we were right in the middle of the long range stuff 10 15 years ago we ended up there accidentally we were developing a rifle that had a a zero it was in the kill zone from the muzzle to 500 yards and it was a 33 78 explain what you mean by that well you want to be able to

look at an animal from zero to 500 yards and not need to know the range because the rifle sheet's so flat flat correct you know you hold right if it's way out there you're going to hold right level with the top of its back if it's close you might duck down a little bit and be down in the lower section of the animal but you never have to come off of the end and that's another point when you see people holding off of an animal you're uh you're shooting at it you aren't shooting it yeah and uh and we ended up in that and i watched some in my skill shoot my ability to shoot dramatically improved uh went from being able to shoot things at two and 300 yards to 700 and 800 yards.

And I shot a few animals at those distances, but they were under super controlled situations. And I bet I passed dozens of animals that I didn't shoot at those distances because everything wasn't right. And what you see now is you see people that are just shooting at stuff at long range. And the animals deserve a better deal than that. I mean, we owe better deal than that i mean we are we owe them more than that yeah i think it's almost a line where you ask yourself am i just

am i shooting this animal or am i hunting this animal you know where you you reach a point where yeah i can shoot that far but i haven't even actually i'm not actually hunting right now i'm just literally just shooting yeah you know when you see you know and you see it all too often now people you know elk at 800 900 000 yards you can't honestly tell me you're hunting an elk a thousand yards you're not hunting him you're just shooting him you know and it's still i know it still doesn't answer the question how far is too far you know but uh no it's it's a it's like an impossible question it wasn't something that people really talked about before i think what brought it up was uh i guess range finders right yeah range finders changed the whole game you know it just it changed everything now you know

with the rifles we have you know the the you know a rifle can put you know some you know a really good shooting rifle put you know a bullet in an 8-inch circle at a thousand yards You know with a competent shooter, you know, of course controlled scenario you're a known scenario with wind and everything else that's going on and I don't want to trivialize this stuff either because It's difficult It's not like anybody's gonna pick up and shoot a dancer. I mean, it's just there's a lot of technical skill Involved in shooting that kind of stuff. And huge amounts of guesswork.

I mean, Floyd and I went up to, I don't know, have you been to the Vortex Extreme Challenge yet? No. Have you done that in Utah? You would like that. You need to go out and watch that sometime. It's pretty interesting. I got scared off just by hearing people talking about it.

Oh, it's insane. I feel like I'd be smoked. Probably the finest group of Western marksmen who are also hunters in ever you know they're all right there at that shoot and they're shooting at known distances most of the guys have shot that course before so they already know what the winds are kind of doing in those different canyons and still the winners are not going to shoot 50 they're shooting between you know 300 and 900 or 1000 yards and they're not going to get 50 hits to win you know so they're doing an under scenario where they're yeah they're they're exercising because it's all part of the course is you're hiking a lot

so you're a little bit tired but there's you don't have an adrenaline rush you know it's not like he's not getting away he's going to stand's going to stand there perfectly broadside until you pull the trigger. Yet, we're still not getting 50% hits. But when you see stuff on YouTube and TV shows and DVDs, the guys never miss. Nobody ever misses. We know that's not true. Because I'm not showing the part where he's hitting

and the guy's calling the bullet for him and he adjusts and shoots and calls the bullet and then he hits him like, there's gold. And those distances, those animals, they don't even know. They don't hear the shot half the time. You know, unless you just blow up a rock right at its toes, they rarely get scared off, you know, when you're shooting at them but to bring it full circle with with technology creep and the inevitable rise in efficacy on hunter parts fishing game

agencies are gonna adjust and they have a couple tools at their disposal. Shorter seasons, fewer tags. Or moving seasons to less opportune hunting times. All of which mean that because of the things we're talking about, you need to pay attention to and learn how to play the tag game because like it or not, it's coming to you. It's coming to a woods near you all right guys thank you very much thank you for listening you you