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Barriers to the Backcountry: Hunting Politics in Wyoming – Dustin Rosencranse
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In this episode, Drew Miles talks with Dustin Rosencranse, President of Wyoming Outdoorsmen, to dig into the complexities of hunting in Wyoming. They cover hot-button issues like non-resident access to wilderness areas, rising tag prices, and the competitive draw system. Drew shares his personal experiences chasing elk and antelope, while Dustin reflects on stepping away from the power sports industry during its peak. It’s a wide-ranging conversation on western hunting, evolving access challenges, and the passion that keeps hunters coming back to Wyoming’s wild places.
WYOMING OUTDOORSMEN – DUSTIN ROSENCRANSE
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Website - https://wyomingoutdoorsmen.org
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Transcript
Introduction to Wyoming Outdoorsman
00:00:01
Speaker
All right, all right. Got another pod coming at you. We have the, is it the president of the wming Wyoming Sportsman Association? Yep, president of Wyoming Outdoorsman here in Cody, Wyoming.
00:00:12
Speaker
President of the Wyoming Outdoorsman. So we've got a royalty on the pod today from Wyoming. Yeah, not quite. I'm bringing them on only so I can yell them about why I can't hunt the wilderness areas. That's it. Oh, yeah.
00:00:25
Speaker
Yeah, that's a sore subject with non-residents. It is, and you're a guide too, yeah?
Challenges for Non-Resident Hunters
00:00:30
Speaker
Yep. So you can, you I could go over with you. You could do that. Absolutely.
00:00:36
Speaker
No, I'm not trying to gaslight you. we're not going to talk about that, but I always, I always bag on Wyoming a little bit with the draw system. And you guys got us too on the, uh, man, I think a note tags like,
00:00:47
Speaker
couple grand now 2300 bucks something up there can help ta yeah i think on the preferred special yeah yeah i bought i know that last year i had like six points for antelope and it like a 60 success rate bison was paying for the special because it was like i wanted to film the hunt and so i was going i i actually flew into cody i surprised to live up there and uh i ended up paying the 1300 bucks um ta you know to guarantee it they definitely have our number up there they definitely get it you know oh for sure yep It's a cool state though. And I definitely apply up there every single year. i mean, I always say even if you'll complain about it, you might as well apply because someone's going to draw. So I'm always putting in and i know I have my elk stuff in. And when are your guys' draw results come out? ah
00:01:32
Speaker
Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Yeah. There we go. Tomorrow. So right now, where's today is June 18th. So tomorrow's your 19th. I'll find out if I drew that elk tag and hope did. Cause I think I'm going to turn back my Colorado tag and go do my son's hunt with
Family and Hunting Memories
00:01:45
Speaker
him mid September. So if I can draw a nice Wyoming tag, it'd be nice to,
00:01:49
Speaker
You bet. Yeah. So the non-resident draw, um, it came out in early June.
00:01:56
Speaker
You should be able to log on to see that. You're right. I didn't draw. um no, you're right. You're right. Um, so I, I knew that. i don't know why i'm telling you that.
00:02:10
Speaker
Yeah. I knew that. I knew that. I knew I hadn't come out for some reason. i think I was talking to Jaden Bales last week and he was waiting for his draw results, but. yeah Yeah, you're right. Did not draw. um So anyways, Dustin, you you were in the power sports business forever, meaning what? Selling dirt bikes, side-by-sides, quads, everything?
00:02:26
Speaker
Yes, snowmobiles, dirt bikes, side-by-sides. Yep, you bet. Street bikes. Oh, the whole nine. So like a full-line motor shop and you sold that, got out of it? I did, yeah. A couple years ago, um timing was right with growth in the industry and real estate was up and Everything just worked out. So so you sold like 2022, like at the peak of ye everything. Because right now I get on the and like i go down to my side-by-side place friends with the owners and there's a lot of inventory.
00:02:58
Speaker
yeah Like when I bought side, I would not want to own that business right now. Let's it that way. So you did good. when I got out of it, we had, i don't know, 150 pre-sold units and we just couldn't get them.
00:03:12
Speaker
Yeah, you couldn't get them. Yeah, it was it was crazy. Yep. Now they've got units stacked everywhere. so I know I had bought a couple. I bought a new 23 KTM 300 and ended paying, I think I might've paid $1,000 more for it than it was worth or something. Cause it's just, yeah and then I went and bought my Polaris here in January, my side-by-side and I got it for like six grand and off. And it was awesome to negotiate again, you know, there a time there where it like, Oh, you want it? Well, it's going to be an extra five grand to get it. And there all these dealer fees and shipping fees. And yeah it was a good time to sell a power sports business. That's for sure.
00:03:45
Speaker
it was a good time to sell. And, uh, yeah, I have two kids that are, uh, one just graduated last month and, and the other one's 13. So am taking advantage of that time now to, to take them hunting.
Managing Predators in Wyoming
00:04:00
Speaker
That's awesome. Yeah. So you just graduated high school. They take it. Yep. Now your kids all like moto kids or do they, uh, my boy is my daughter'd rather go get on a mule and ride in the back country. So,
00:04:14
Speaker
Okay. Which is fine with me too. Which is your daughter, the older or the younger? She's older. Yeah. She's 18. So that's kind of cool. You got your 13 year old son and you're going to get a good five year stretch of just killing stuff and having fun.
00:04:27
Speaker
Yep. It goes fast, man. Like my, my kid just graduated last year. or he's basically graduated now, but last year was his last hunting season, basically with me, right? Cause he's going to college for six and a wants to be a lawyer, six and a half years. And it's like, good luck getting him out in the fall, you know, he'd be in school. Yeah. Yeah. So it kind of hit me hard, you know? And then this year is kind of, my kids got three really good, I mean, they're really good tags, but two really good tags and one decent tag in Arizona now. And i don't really have many tags myself, so I'm guiding him, but I'm like, after this year, man, like be graduating and,
00:04:59
Speaker
getting a job and probably getting a wife at some point here next few years. And yeah, no doubt, you know, life comes and it's just enjoy it while you can, you know, every minute of it, get them out there and do it. And we were talking before I got on that. I'd much rather hunt with, uh, my kids than I would with myself, you know, I'm not trying to get them an animal.
00:05:17
Speaker
And honestly, I feel like it's, I mean, you know, this is your guide, which I don't know how you guys guide. mean, you guys are a next level people to can guide. Cause like even guiding my kids, sometimes I feel like I'm going pull my hair out.
00:05:29
Speaker
Couldn't imagine guiding, you know, a grown man who doesn't want to get up or cut up a hill, you know, and getting your kid animal is much harder than getting yourself an animal. you know for sure yep yeah but it's rewarding when you when you do so oh man when you do like it's there's no better feeling than that first buck and i mean it's just it's so cool my kids have killed so many animals now you know antelope goats you know mean sheep it's just they just had a blast we were in hawaii we just killed a bunch of stuff like it's just been so fun pigs it's just so great to get with them and do that but uh
00:06:04
Speaker
Yeah, much better than getting them for myself, but it is nice once so I get get a hunt for myself too. You bet, yeah. It is fun. And yeah, I've put more effort into my kids, I think, than I did myself trying to kill big animals and stuff. And heck, my daughter's killed some elk that I haven't even had the opportunity to kill. it's been pretty fun.
00:06:29
Speaker
How is the youth draw up there? is it do you guys Do they get a real good chance at some good tags? They don't. They're just piled right in with us. Really?
00:06:41
Speaker
Yeah. Arizona does pretty good, and Utah is phenomenal for kids. ye Utah. if you're not putting your boy in in Utah, you need to put your boy in Utah because you could draw ah six- or seven-year tag every other year in Utah for a youth.
00:06:56
Speaker
Wow. Yeah, i need to look at that. yeah You got to get them into Utah. I think today's deadline, actually, June 18th is the deadline for their cow tags, which you should draw. And that doesn't go against your, in Utah, I need put my points in for that.
00:07:10
Speaker
In Utah, it doesn't go against your um your bull tag. So a lot of states, if you use your elk points you for a cow, you lose your points. Well, in Utah, there's two separate draws. There's a an antlerless and an antlered.
00:07:22
Speaker
And so if you you know you draw a cow tag, you can still, it means you can go hunt every two or three years, hunt cow down there and do it. that's awesome
Conservation and Youth Involvement
00:07:31
Speaker
you guys have a good season there for you guys though and you guys get i think gear season runs so doesn't yours run from archery into rifle as well like you can kind of continue the tag uh some areas you can yeah they've been changing that now um there's a lot of archery specific tags that you can't rifle hunt on but some you can a general elk tag you can bow hunt and then go right into rifle season
00:07:56
Speaker
Yeah, I know that that residents get taken care pretty well over there in Wyoming. It's a good good state good state to live, be a resident in for hunting, that's for sure. You bet, yep, for Small population, couple of million up there, yeah, something like that? oh No, we're about 550,000.
00:08:13
Speaker
A whole state? Yep. Geez, I don't know why i thought it was 2 million. so Yeah, until about three years ago, we had more antelope than people. did you yeah that bad winter then all of a sudden yellowstone came out and everyone wanted to be a cowboy there you go yeah now we had a really bad winter wiped them out here two winters and three winters ago i guess yeah yeah that big that big antelope uh it was not only antelope mule deer elk everything across the west got pretty got pretty tore up on that one yeah so tell me about wyoming sportsman association how'd you get involved that how long you've been there i've been a ah member for years um
00:08:52
Speaker
I didn't actually become an officer until after I sold my business and had a little bit more time. So um
Political and Economic Aspects of Conservation
00:09:01
Speaker
yeah, there was some long time president there that wanted to step down and isn I had time. So I stepped up and we're trying to grow it. And yeah, we we started scholarship endowment program this year.
00:09:20
Speaker
take a little bit of load off our general fund. Cause we give out like this year we gave out 10, 10, $1,000 scholarships for, for kids looking to, to be into wildlife related fields and.
00:09:35
Speaker
Oh, cool. Yeah. Pretty good deal. And you guys also, um are you guys actively involved in any of the politics up there? ah We do, we, we get into it if it's wildlife related for sure.
00:09:50
Speaker
ye Yeah, there's one i'm I'm watching right now, the the sale of public lands. we're We're looking at that pretty close, but um you probably know more about that than I do at this point.
00:10:03
Speaker
Oh, we mean we're we're definitely put the letters in, did all that stuff, and then we've got the, we run some posts and stuff forward at Tricer. Yeah, it's one of those things where it's like, Man, when it comes to the outdoors, like I don't really care about politics when it comes to like Republican or Democrat. There's just there's evils on both sides. Yeah, we've got a Republican senator out of Utah that's just out there wanting to sell off three million acres of public land.
00:10:30
Speaker
Yeah. And the issue is, is once you sell three million acres off, you're never getting it back. Never. Yeah. You know, and and, you know, what are they selling it next to? Because, you know, I know like in San Diego, like we developed houses. We we can't hunt anywhere in the county of San Diego anymore.
00:10:45
Speaker
You know, like we used we used to duck hunt a bunch of these local lakes and do stuff. And now they start building houses a mile away or, you know, half a mile away. And now you can't duck hunt because they don't want to hear shotguns at 6 a.m., you know. Wow. And you just, you got to worry about that stuff as well. Like what else are you going to lose when they
Youth Involvement in Predator Management
00:11:00
Speaker
start selling that land off? What properties year are going lose? What properties you going landlocked?
00:11:04
Speaker
when they do that, you know, it's more than 3 million acres. It's just a slippery slope. And yeah, for sure, man, I'd, uh, I don't know. want to too political, but I'd much rather, you know, deport a bunch of people who shouldn't be here and keep our housing. We have then build a bunch more housing for some people who shouldn't be here. You know? Yeah, exactly.
00:11:21
Speaker
It's just, uh, yeah. I mean, I don't know. I don't, I don't think our public land should be for sale. it' something beautiful that the West has. i mean, you look out East and they don't have any of it, you know? Right. and we have that out here and and once we lose it, we're never getting it back.
00:11:34
Speaker
And just, it tags are hard enough to get as it is right now. Can you imagine if we sold off 3 million light acres of land? Yeah. Not a good, not a good scenario. And yeah, so we're looking at that stuff and not too much political though. We try to try to be on the positive end of stuff and and do projects that are, I guess, a little more worth our time than being into, into politics. So.
00:12:00
Speaker
Yeah, i hate politics. My son wants to be a put want to go to politics and be a lawyer and move out there Virginia and do that. I'm just like, I don't i don't want to i don't care to be involved with it. But sometimes you got sign up for it. What about like ah the conservation side, though? Because you're already doing a lot with that. and you guys are doing predator stuff. What does that look like for you guys?
00:12:17
Speaker
Yeah, we do some projects. This last year, we we facilitated some trade-in irrigation equipment. we We acted as a pass-through um And so how that works, like if you have an ag guy, a large ag producer that let's say he has quarter mile long pivot, you know, for an irrigation system.
00:12:44
Speaker
um If he donates that to our organization, he can write off the entire amount of that. So like if he donates that with a, and puts a dollar figure on it, that's equal to what he would get as a trade in
00:12:59
Speaker
he can write off the entire amount of that pivot and then we can pass it through. ah This year we did one that we just passed through to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and they used it on some department lands to to irrigate some habitat for pheasants and whitetails.
00:13:17
Speaker
Oh really? it was a win-win, yeah. It is a win-win, that's really cool. So they can go and instead having them hammer some farmer's fields, they go put out there and grow some of their own alfalfa. Exactly. Yep.
00:13:28
Speaker
Grain, whatever, you know, for the birds. and Yeah, for sure. Especially in some of this wintering territory where it's just so brutal, you know, we're having to put hay out all over where to keep things alive. You bet.
00:13:39
Speaker
Yeah, and that way they're not having to pay a farmer to to leave some of his crop standing so they have cover. you know can grow our own. Now, what are you ah what do you guys do with predators up there?
00:13:51
Speaker
So this year we ran a ah bounty program on on coyotes. um I think we killed about 560, 590 coyotes on that bounty program, somewhere right in there.
00:14:05
Speaker
um And then going into this next winter, we're starting a three-year project that we partnered with the Game and Fish on to aerial gun some coyotes in like critical fawning areas for mule deer.
00:14:23
Speaker
yeah And we we did that in the past and it, um If you can get those fawns through the first month, they have a really good chance of surviving.
00:14:35
Speaker
You know, those coyotes really get after them the first three weeks, four weeks of their life. um And so in the past, I think we ended a program about four years ago that we ran for three years.
00:14:51
Speaker
And we took fawn survival from about 30% roughly to about 70% in that area. Yeah. Yeah. Really, really did a good job.
00:15:03
Speaker
That was with aerial or is that what was just predator calling? It's a combination. um We put out some bait sites on the winter range. And once those bait sites start getting hit pretty heavy, then we go in there with fixed wing and we shoot those coyotes off those bait sites and and the surrounding area.
00:15:24
Speaker
Have you got to do it? No, we we have to contract with wildlife services to do that. My buddy, that was his job before he retired. And he says they use shotguns, fixed wing, and the dog will be running and they're aiming 10 foot in front of them and ye or 10 foot behind them.
00:15:41
Speaker
Behind them. Sorry, 10 foot behind them. Behind them, yeah. And it's just because they're moving so fast in the plane, even at their slowest speed, you don't know what it is. It's 80 miles per hour, whatever. Yeah, aiming 10 feet behind them and shooting these dogs on the run or, you know, it's, they said it's a hoot.
00:15:55
Speaker
It's a total hoot. And you're down low shooting at these coyotes with shotguns out of planes. yeah And they take a lot out. They did it here in San Diego. Yep. Yeah, it really works well. And, and if you time that from March to May, um, you're, you're killing maybe bred coyotes already, you know, that are pregnant and, uh, you, know I mean, I'm sure, you know, how coyotes, um, regulate their own population with unavailability of food.
00:16:26
Speaker
So, so if the, Availability of food going into winter, you know, December, January, if it's really high, then those coyotes ah ovulate more eggs and have more pups.
00:16:38
Speaker
And so doing a coyote program um too early in the winter, all that does is, is the remaining coyotes have more pups.
00:16:50
Speaker
So it really doesn't help the deer population. But doing that from March to May, really, there's a number of studies now that it really has a good impact on fawn survival. so That is awesome. Yeah, I know. I need to get out. i have a Fox Pro and I'm like i said i'm doing all this predator stuff.
00:17:09
Speaker
I need to find a day to get out probably before I leave next, I'm leaving next Wednesday for 10 days, but try, try and get out once or twice. We know. And then you get me excited and there's nothing better than calling and dog, especially right now. we get that puffiness stress going, especially the the, all the dogs coming out of the dens.
00:17:25
Speaker
They're really fun to call. And I know that's not going do any good for the dang fawns, but. they're really fun to start at calling these pups are coming out the den here in a couple of months, you know, August, you get those dumb dogs running in there. And I love running. I always run a shotgun on my lap and then, you know, it's a rifle, like a two 43 or something up ah on the, on the gun, uh, on the sticks.
00:17:45
Speaker
Yep. You bet. So what does that bounty look like? I mean, is that like a hundred bucks a dog or, we were doing 25 bucks a coyote, um, 10 bucks a Fox, 10 bucks a raccoon.
00:17:58
Speaker
Really? Yeah. We spent right at $15,000 this year. That was our budget, and we we ended up, I think we had like $400 left at the end. so that's awesome That's a freaking ton of coyotes.
00:18:12
Speaker
Yeah, I think, like say, five between $550 and $600 coyotes. Wow, that's awesome. That's
Hunting Regulations and Personal Experiences
00:18:20
Speaker
a lot of dogs off the landscape. it's good It's a good program. Yep, for sure. That's really cool.
00:18:24
Speaker
And you said you went from 30% to 70%. So now, how are you running? Are you saying it's just area specific and you got to kind of honor system that? So the bounty program, we ran that countywide.
00:18:37
Speaker
We didn't concentrate on any area with that. The aerial gunning, we're werere concentrating on areas that deer are fawning. so When you say countywide, do you mean like it was in Cody County or?
00:18:52
Speaker
Yeah. Park County. Actually, we ran it in Park County, Bighorn County and Washakie County. So, okay. Yeah. The majority of those coyotes, probably 90% of them came from Park County.
00:19:03
Speaker
Good though. You're going to populations go up, especially right now. hundred percent. Yep. Yeah. The wildlife services that we contract to do that, um, I built a relationship with those guys and, and they just shared a project they did uh,
00:19:20
Speaker
kind in the middle of the state on the Nowood River where the mule deer were really suffering. And they did a four-year project there and they grew the post-season deer count by 30%.
00:19:34
Speaker
And at the end of the fourth season, they had over 80% fawn recruitment. And it was was in the low 30s when they started. So That's wild.
00:19:46
Speaker
I'll tell you what, I mean, I found a few fawns a couple weeks ago when I was up there hunting in Montana. found one just ahead, right? And then we watched we watched calves, like, i mean, basically dropping, you know, elk were dropping.
00:19:58
Speaker
And those first couple days, those cats fawns and calves are on their feet. I mean, anything could kill them. Anything. I mean, anything could kill them. I mean, they're just all look like they're skating on ice. know, trying to walk around, you know, they're just prime picking for coyotes all day long. Even those calves, you know, for, for coyotes come in there and take them out, you know?
00:20:19
Speaker
Yeah. Coyotes are actually harder on elk calves, even than I realized till I started working with wildlife services. um Those first two weeks when those calves are born,
00:20:31
Speaker
the mom actually leaves them and she'll go quite a ways away and they do that on purpose to draw draw the predators with them but it leaves those calves really vulnerable if you know those coyotes can get in on them when they're just laying there trying to hide and and they kill them i mean there's tiny little animals and yeah they're not i mean they can't be more than ah 40 pound, i don't know how big they are, 40 pounds probably. I mean, easily killed by a coyote.
00:20:59
Speaker
It's like a small dog, small dog up there running around. Yep. When we started that coyote project, I mean, when we were going in and hunting some dens in May, you would find calf, you know, legs and heads and stuff laying around the dens. So I was like, man, I didn't realize they killed that many, but, and they, they don't for a long time.
00:21:22
Speaker
You know, that's the difference between, on elk calves anyway, between wolves and bears and coyotes. Coyotes can only kill them for those first couple of weeks when the mom kind of leaves them by themselves.
00:21:33
Speaker
Once they start tagging along with mom, mom can protect them from a coyote, but wolves and bears kill them clear to the end of August. Oh yeah. I mean, wolf doesn't care. No cow. Oaks are afraid of a wolf.
00:21:46
Speaker
They're taking off, you know? Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's a neat program. i don't even know if, i don't think we're even a allowed to do bounties in California. i know were all pray I know we're not allowed to do predator contests. thats because We're not allowed to kill bobcats anymore.
00:21:58
Speaker
We have these ah these guys that went up there and we they banned bobcat hunting. And, you know, the biologist is up there and he's saying, you know, I've been in the field for 20 years and I've never seen a bobcat. mean, there's weekends where I see five bobcat in a weekend looking for deer.
00:22:11
Speaker
We have so many bobcats, obviously funny, and they just hammer. That's one of the things we run into down here is we have real bad drought years, right, in San Diego. So we get a bad drought year, there's no grass, so our turkey poults just get destroyed by the bobcats and the coyotes.
00:22:26
Speaker
i mean The only thing we're allowed to hunt is the coyotes, because we have lions have been banned since the 90s, and we have a lion every square mile of this county. it's unreal how many lions we have in California. Wow. The government still kills 600 a year. They just don't talk about it. You know, it it's much cheaper to, instead of, you know, having guys do it for free to pay people, you know, millions of dollars a year to go and kill them, you know?
00:22:47
Speaker
Yeah, you bet. Yeah, we have the same thing with our wolves and our grizzly bears. you know, they kill, I don't know, 60 wolves a year probably. And, and it depends 40 to 60 grizzly bears a year.
00:23:02
Speaker
you know, we can't hunt them, but we pay people do it. Yeah. So what does your wolf hunts look like? i mean, because you've got a lot up there. i imagine my Jackson Hole and stuff is kind where most of your grizzlies and wolves are.
00:23:13
Speaker
Yeah. North of Jackson. We're, we're clear up in the North corner, but so our wolf, it's kind of a messed up
Economic Implications of Hunting
00:23:20
Speaker
deal, but basically from the Montana line um to about 40 miles South of Cody, they're considered trophy game animals. Yeah.
00:23:32
Speaker
And so we have these little bitty quotas and they divided it up into these little bitty hunt areas. And we get to start hunting them September 15th and it runs till December 31st or until the quotas are full.
00:23:50
Speaker
And so we have areas that are so full of wolves that I think area three and four last year closed in 15 days. So you don't even really get to hunt them, you know.
00:24:01
Speaker
So you you guys are more like, hey, are we we're not trying to manage some trophy wolves. We just want some dead wolves. Can we just get rid of this trophy thing? Yeah. like we're not It's not like we're like our deer or elk where we want to limit quotas on these things. you know We just want to kind of knock them down, get them scared. you know i mean, you're not going to kill them off. and We're getting them bad in California now. They're all the way down into the Sierras now. i mean And we're never going to be able to hunt them here. i mean, it's just... We might as well give up on deer hunting in this state.
00:24:27
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, it's... The wolves have annihilated our elk and deer. um But you know, those populations like our deer, what we've shown even in areas where where we're where we're doing those coyote projects are in areas that have wolves.
00:24:47
Speaker
And those to deer and and elk as well, they can deal with a couple of predators, major predators. But when you start just piling them up, they can't deal with it anymore. They they have no fawn recruitment or calf recruitment. And I mean, it surprised me just to take away one of those predators and have that fawn survival jump that much.
00:25:12
Speaker
yeah why i think I mean, how many fawns, I mean, obviously cowards are eating a lot of small stuff too. They're eating a lot of mice, a lot of squirrels. And I'm sure you guys have like groundhogs up there, right? And badgers, you they're eating lot of small stuff too, ah raccoons. But man, if you took out 500 and each of those coyotes killed, I don't know, five fawns a year.
00:25:34
Speaker
yeah i would' have be I don't think you've ever heard of a thing of coyote kills five a year. No. Not at all. know and ah Even those smaller fawns, they're gonna get hammered by coyotes with a pack of them. you know what I mean? They're at're two or three months old, they're gonna take them down.
00:25:48
Speaker
yeah. yeah Yeah, two or three coyotes, they're killing a adult deer all winter long. yeah They don't just kill fawns. Yeah. yeah So you get these start taking care of you, you really shorn up, you know maybe a few thousand deer a year.
00:26:03
Speaker
yeah Which exponentially is pretty freaking good. yeah Yeah, you do that for three seasons in a row and all of sudden all those fawns are having fawns and yeah, it's awesome.
00:26:14
Speaker
What you want is for your predator hunting to suck and then your deer hunting would be great. you know You want the predator hunting not to be that easy. Yep. Well, you think about it, I mean, in the 80s, coyote hide was worth 125 bucks.
00:26:29
Speaker
Geez. Now, I mean, you're lucky if you get 20 bucks for a coyote hide. I'd throw this one into a ditch. Yeah, that's, yeah, if you don't have some kind of bounty to incentivize that, people don't even pick them up.
00:26:43
Speaker
You know, if you do shoot them and there's no incentive to burn $4 a gallon diesel fuel to go look for a coyote. So we're just not, we're not controlling that number anywhere in the West.
00:26:56
Speaker
I mean, that's, we have this mule deer herd that's crashing in every state in the West. And the one major thing that has changed is they're really trapping is non-existent on coyotes right now.
00:27:09
Speaker
And it hasn't been for 20 years. So if we could get every state in the West to do predator programs, like what we're doing, we might actually see mule deer again. Yeah. No. And it's, and that tag is getting harder and harder to draw.
00:27:25
Speaker
That's kind of why I've been kind of looking out of the country and going to other places. And it's just like, you're drawing mule deer tags, getting harder and harder every year. i mean it's just creeping like crazy. It's just, the numbers are going down and the tag, and more people are applying it's just getting harder and harder to draw that tag. It's going to be, I mean, I think we're almost, I think we just came out of the good old days and we're probably kind of in the beginning of what's going to be like some dark ages for deer hunting in the next 10 years. It's going down and down every year. Yep.
00:27:49
Speaker
hundred percent. Yeah. I think our numbers in Wyoming, In 2025, we're sitting at 50% of the deer population two of the year 2000.
00:28:03
Speaker
We had roughly, i just saw a report on it, was roughly 450,000 deer, And sixty thousand in find big buck.
00:28:14
Speaker
and in twenty twenty five where ah little bit under two hundred and twenty five thousand year statewide mean do the numbers on that and trying to find a big buck you know exactly you're cutting your odds in half again to find a big buck you know exactly yep out of the i mean you're probably only 30 those are bucks right maybe out of that 200 000 you got 60 000 bucks in the state of wyoming and then of those 60 000 maybe 5 000 of them are good bucks or decent four buys you know and then how many giants are in there it just gets down it makes lot harder to find a good deer yep
00:28:51
Speaker
I think everyone should predator hunt, man. I think it's, I think for one, it's your job as a sportsman to go kill predators. And for two, it makes you a better hunter. Like I learned how to big game hunt by predator hunting. I learned my areas, my local areas.
00:29:04
Speaker
i have pins from the border all the way to Temecula, you know, California from just going out and doing, uh, predator stands you know and hunting and learning how to play the wind learning what a good stand looks like you know learning what elevation looks like learning how to see things and is you just sort start finding oh crap there's a water hole here oh there's a stream here you know you start learning stuff and start finding things and not only that you're killed the predators which is you bet there's i mean i i would much rather go hunt coyotes and go to turkey hunting don't know all these turkey guys love it but man there's something cool about
00:29:36
Speaker
that coyote shows up and you drop him right there in his track, you know, and the head flies back and he hits the dirt. It's, I love killing coyotes. Yep. It's a blast. And you know, that time of the year, there's at least in Wyoming, there's very few people out in the back country.
00:29:53
Speaker
um And you get to see, you know, wintering bull elk and, and some of those handful of big buck deer that are left. And
Future of Hunting and Community Support
00:30:02
Speaker
this, this winter right after maybe,
00:30:06
Speaker
15 days after the wolf quota filled, I set up with my daughter to call, we set up on a bobcat track doing a cat set and we called in seven wolves.
00:30:18
Speaker
All seven of them were under 10 yards. I mean, what an experience for a teenage girl. i mean, she still talks about it. It was so fun, you know, and to to see those wolves interacting with each other, snapping her teeth at each other and howling and stuff. It was a blast. Wow.
00:30:36
Speaker
What were you running for that? Like a lightning jack or something? Like a jackrabbit? Or were you running? So I started off, I start off most of my bobcat sets with some kind of a bird in distress. Yeah, like a bird, like a woodpecker in a distress. Woodpecker, a finch or something. Yeah. and um And I don't run the the same call very long.
00:30:57
Speaker
Like coyotes or bobcats, their attention span is is pretty short. And they'll come in and they'll set up. and they won't move. They sit on their butt.
00:31:09
Speaker
yeah Yeah, they sit on their butt and they just look. yeahp And then if something doesn't change with your call, they might leave. But if you change your your call every two minutes or three minutes, it keeps their attention. And then I've seen them when you change to a different sound, they just get up and move again.
00:31:29
Speaker
And then they'll sit down. And so every couple minutes I change. but Anyway, on that one, I made two bird calls. So we were like four minutes into it. And I changed to a snowshoe hare in distress because we were were up in that part of the world, right? Like 9,000 feet, probably 8,500 feet. and And as soon as I turned it to a snowshoe call, these wolves just came piling over the ridge right at us. And yeah, it was it was crazy.
00:31:58
Speaker
You said 10 wolves, huh? There was seven of them. Seven. Seven wolves and we got them all under 10 yards. That's well, if you'd been a hundred yards North in Idaho, you could have just stacked them up. yep shot as many I don't know if they if they have a daily quota or not, but I think you can i shoot it. I'm not sure in Idaho.
00:32:20
Speaker
need to have a tag. I know that there's certain areas that closed down. But i know it's open year-round, which is nice. yep Montana shuts it down. shuts It's only open until, I think, I don't know. it I don't want to put dates out here, but it's kind of in the fall.
00:32:32
Speaker
I know it's shut down during bear season. It's not open right now. i don't want to throw dates out there without people messaging me. I lied on here, but... Yeah, man. You know what what call I like the most? Because I typically I'll start out some howls. I'm coyote. This is my coyote set, I'll start out with some calls, some howls.
00:32:47
Speaker
um Then I'll probably go over to like some rabbit stuff. We would like where I live in, you know, desert area where we have lots of jackrabbits. So we'll do a lot of jackrabbit distress, baby cottontail, that kind of stuff. And then I always end a set. Now I'll run that. Typically I find they're coming within six to eight minutes, kind of like the mark for an animal for those calls. they and If they're in the area and you're running like a jackrabbit in distress, they're probably coming.
00:33:08
Speaker
But now I say they hang up, they don't come. I always end, I typically run like a 15 minute set. That's why I'm hunting bobcats, but I can't hunt those anymore here. um I'll always end with like three or four minutes of ah pup in distress.
00:33:20
Speaker
yeah And man, I swear, if there's a coyote in the area, they cannot handle but come in on that call. I never leave a set without running pup in distress because they just cannot. You just know like once you hit that call that they're coming hard.
00:33:33
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I've seen that too. I've actually watched coyotes. that were holding up 400 yards out or whatever, and you switch it to a pup distress and they just get up and come. Well, especially right now, because right now they're denning up, the pups are coming out of the den, the mom and dad are starting to go hunting right now, they're all coming out, everyone's hungry.
00:33:51
Speaker
Get that puffer and his dress going. That mom is going to go bananas. And I'm excited. i need to go figure out how to get out here before I leave on Wednesday. might feeling good I think i've I have a meeting at 1130 on Monday morning. I might go hunt coyotes Monday morning and get out there like 5 a.m.
00:34:05
Speaker
and hunt for four or five hours. And I'm just getting excited even thinking about it. So um that's awesome me guys doing that. And you guys do a bunch of youth stuff too up there, yeah? We do. Yeah. The Wyoming Outdoorsmen, we, we sponsor, um, several clay teams here in the County.
00:34:22
Speaker
Um, don't know. We put, I don't know, roughly 30 grand into those programs and really, um, yeah. Yep. It's a pretty good deal. you like Jake's events or just mostly to sponsoring clay team? Are you doing like events for kids, like youth stuff or we do some stuff that way. Um,
00:34:41
Speaker
we do We do some youth turkey hunts, some youth deer hunts in the fall,
00:34:49
Speaker
and then some youth fishing stuff too, trips in the in the spring. Gotcha. gotcha Yeah, that's awesome. Oh, because you're sportsman, so i mean it's it's across the board, all kind of outdoor stuff, I imagine, yeah on the hunting and fishing.
00:35:02
Speaker
Yep, you bet. I still have never picked up a fly rod. not a, I caught a bunch of giant tuna and I caught a bunch of yellowtail, you know, most guys haven't done that, but I still have not picked up a fly rod.
00:35:14
Speaker
ah We have a program. It's called a first fish on a fly for the kids. and I'll get to come join here. I'll be a 40, the first 40 year old on a fly. I'll come there and do that and teach you fly fish, you know, we're actually going down. We're heading down to Baja. I'm taking the whole tricer team down to Baja in couple of weeks. We're going down Bay of LA. It's like eight hours off the border on the sea Cortez side.
00:35:36
Speaker
And we'll be catching yellowtail until our arms can't do it anymore. We'll bring home hundreds of pounds It's gonna be a good time. That's a blast. I love the tuna stuff, but I haven't got into, I know like the trout and on the whole fly, it's supposed to be like mystical, right? And everyone just loves the whole experience. and you tie your own flies, do that thing. I need to go up there and do it and just try it out and get the waders on and get out there. And everyone one seems to love it.
00:35:59
Speaker
Yep. Yeah, that's fun. I enjoy the sight fishing, right? Like, I don't know you've fished for redfish down like in Florida. No, but I know, like in Texas down there? No, I've never done redfish. We have our redfish or bottom fish here in San Diego. We can bottom fish. They're calling them redfish, but not the same redfish you're talking about down there in Texas.
00:36:21
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, they're similar to trout as far as how you fish for them. You paddle around in a in a little boat in shallow water and you see them and you you're sight cast and, you know. That's, that's pretty like hunting, but for fish. Yeah.
00:36:35
Speaker
But for fish. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, people get hooked on it, man. I mean, like my friend, cause we're, we're like one of the bass capitals of the world. So like, I have so many friends who are just, they're bass fishing setups just make my custom rifles look like nothing, you know?
00:36:51
Speaker
mean, every lure is, you know, a hundred bucks. Some of these lures, these guys are throwing now. It's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. So not only do you do the Wyoming Fishing Games, or the plum sorry Wyoming Sportsman Association, or Wyoming Outdoorsman, I'm sorry.
00:37:07
Speaker
Wyoming Outdoorsman, you also are a guide and outfitter, yeah? I'm not an outfitter. um I work for a couple outfitters here locally. John Porter is one of them I work for, and then me, Dominic.
00:37:23
Speaker
And you're just getting out there, you're and you're guiding sheep. more well you got Do you guide sheep or elk more? Um, I've done way more elk hunts. Um, I'm getting older and those elk quarters are kind of heavy. So I've kind of migrated towards sheep a bit, but, uh, and I have more time now to do the sheep, but I started off guiding.
00:37:46
Speaker
Um, I used to, yeah, to be very successful. I'm still successful on the, on the elk end of it, but that was my deal. I took very few hunters, um,
00:37:57
Speaker
They were late elk hunters, November, you know Thanksgiving time. And I guided for some really big bulls. I was very fortunate in my career. so Really?
00:38:09
Speaker
what's the What's the biggest bull you put down? um So my daughter's bull is probably the biggest. It's right here behind me. You can see it there over my shoulder.
00:38:22
Speaker
That bull is like 404. geez so you can't see it online one two seven seven by seven it's um let's see it is seven by nine seven by nine i can't so the nine must be on the right side on his right yeah his you can't see that side there has oh there it all is yeah look at that freak of a whale tail look at that yeah geez yeah pretty cool so and then i hunted with uh brendan burns from kuyu
00:38:56
Speaker
Oh, dude, he's an awesome dude. Yeah, his bull was like 401. Really? Mm-hmm. really Yeah, I talked to Brandon for about an hour at Western Hunt this year. I need to get him on the phone. He gave me his cell number. like, call him anytime talking.
00:39:10
Speaker
Gave me the time of day because I'm kind of going through a of stuff they've already been through, right, and dealing with a lot of things they've done. And he's just like salt of the earth, like just willing to give me advice, which I was just respected so much. I want to hear – you know I always have a mindset of like i want talk to to somebody who's done what I've done. right Somebody who's got the knowledge, not you know somebody who's doing what I'm doing. You want to surround yourself with a bunch of yes guys want someone to and tell you. you know He gave me some really good advice. and Actually, some advice I'm going to hold until I die. Some good stuff.
00:39:38
Speaker
Just in that hour of talking to him. That's awesome. and He was archery only, I assume. No, it was a rifle hunt, actually. It was a rifle hunt, really? yeah Yeah. He hadn't killed much Um, you know, he kills all those big bulls up Montana with a bow and he, um, I remember exactly what happened there, but one of his friends
Stories and Closing Reflections
00:40:01
Speaker
bought a Wyoming governor's elk tag and couldn't use it.
00:40:07
Speaker
And so he ended up giving it to, to, uh, Brandon and it wasn't even a guide deal. I ended up taking him just through a friend and he didn't have anybody here to hunt with. And so, um,
00:40:19
Speaker
A couple buddies and i and and Brendan went in and ended up killing this giant bull. so Jeez. Pretty fun. need to get friends like Brendan. Yeah, no doubt. If anyone out there has a governor's tag they bought at Sheep Show or Western Hunt this year and you can't fill it, Jimmy John, if you're out there, Jimmy John, I know you bought half of the Sheep Show up this year.
00:40:41
Speaker
i will gladly take that tag and and go hunt it for you and and give you all the video footage. You can even you can even keep it no doubt ah yeah because i mean that's like i want to do the sheep so bad man i feel like it's just so unobtainable now for me you know i've got points in all these states and i know you're gonna do a doll we talk about your doll sheep a little bit so you're guiding mostly you said mostly sheep stuff now a lot of or 50 50 probably yeah yep yeah know but mountain goat I'm going to go on a mountain goat. I'm actually to scout mountain goat next month. My buddy drew a tag. I think he burnt like 31 points or something like that in Colorado. So I'm going to spend a week over there with Ed Vance and um scouting here in July. was looking for goats, but that's kind of like where I'm at with it is like, I almost want to go hang out with some of these sheep guys in California and just go start glassing for them, you know, because I'm just never going draw the tag.
00:41:35
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's kind of part of why I do. I mean, I, I did, draw my own Wyoming tag. Um, and I was lucky enough to harvest a nice ram.
00:41:47
Speaker
Um, but yeah, as far as drawing another tag in my lifetime, it's probably not going to happen. So the only way to go and be part of that is to, you know, unless you have a friend that's lucky enough to draw and you'd go with him. Um, but for me it's, yeah, I just, I take my mules and I go take hunter.
00:42:03
Speaker
So. Yeah, I gotcha. Now, do you – you guys only have Rockies up there do you guys see have deserts as well? No. Only Rockies, right? Just Bighorn. Yep. Now, those Bighorn, they don't take you to places that are harder than the elk?
00:42:17
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yeah, but they're just – I mean, half a sheep doesn't weigh anything, right? Not like you're packing a 90-pound elk quarter off the mountain. I'm just not sure what kind terrain they live in. I mean, i just know some of the stuff I live in on here is just steep and nasty, you know? and some of the stuff Some of the stuff in California is just brutal. All these deserts, you know, you're hunting out there in the middle of you know middle of the desert and rocks and steep shale and gnarly stuff these are for these sheep. and The Rockies, I can't imagine, are as bad, but I'm sure they still live in some pretty nasty stuff.
00:42:48
Speaker
it's pretty nasty and it's you know we're nine to eleven thousand feet twelve thousand feet yeah so that's but i have a good string of mules and i can ride them most of the way you know oh yeah yeah and that's one of those things too like you said i mean what's the thing weigh 50 pounds when you're all said and done by the time you cut them up and quarter them out i mean somewhere on there yeah i mean you're probably if you yeah cape head and all the meat you're probably you're close to 100 pounds or the cape and the head yeah yeah that was a second but yeah yeah their head's heavy so you've killed your rocky have you killed anything else on the in the slam no no hopefully this fall i'll uh connect on a doll sheep so
00:43:37
Speaker
So let's get into that. Let me tell you real quick. So my buddy, do you ever, ever heard of Hushin, Big Shed Guys? So we were at Sheep Show this year and some guy, Eric was talking to somebody and the guy goes, I got a challenge for you. And he goes, what's that? And he's like, I challenge you to go and find the Deadhead Grand Slam.
00:43:58
Speaker
Oh, wow. So he only has to get ah his doll sheep and he'll have the grand slam. We found three of them this year. Oh, two of them already. So he already had, he already had a desert, I believe. No, he already had a, he already had a Rocky.
00:44:13
Speaker
So he found a desert this year already. He just went and found a stone sheep. I'm going to put this on pause real quick. You bet.
00:44:23
Speaker
So anyways, so Eric's doing this grand slam. He's already got the desert. He just went and got his stone sheep, went up there and they found a stone. And he actually paid like, I think seven grand to go look for a stone sheep shed. He paid to fly and do the whole thing.
00:44:35
Speaker
So now he's got a friend who has a hiking area for dolls. And he's going to be like the first dude that I know of that has found the deadhead slam.
00:44:46
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome. Yep. So if you can't hunt them, you can find them. Yeah. You know, if you don't draw a tag, ah you don't draw a tag. You can go find the deadheads and do it. But Eric's already the first one to do it.
00:44:59
Speaker
So anyways, you, you have the Rocky, you went last year and you forked out the cash to go to Yukon, which is one of my big gripes of this thing. It's like, it's like a 30 grand hunt. Now you fork out the cash to do it and you didn't get it done last year, huh?
00:45:14
Speaker
No, I, um, so this is a crazy deal, but I, I, when I sold my power sports business, um I invested with a couple friends and and one of them bought, so one of one of my friends is a Canadian, his name's Todigan Hodson.
00:45:32
Speaker
um And we ended up buying an area up there and Todigan, he's the outfitter and and he, so he runs the area and owns it on paper and and he's going to pay us back at the end of five years, I'll be out of the outfitting business in Canada. but Part of my payback was to go doll hunting in the Yukon.
00:45:54
Speaker
And so he went as my guide and, um, yeah, we backpacked, don't even know a hundred and hundred plus miles, maybe 120 miles. I don't know. But, um, and we saw 28 rams.
00:46:09
Speaker
One was legal, but it, it was, i think it was seven years old and pretty thin horned and just wasn't something we wanted to harvest, you know? So So 28 rams, you're coming back this year. Hopefully there's a legal ram in there now.
00:46:26
Speaker
I'm sure there, I don't know that we're going to go to the same area, same part of the hunt unit, but um and we're, we're going, the outfitter's great. It's a Mac Watson with North curl.
00:46:39
Speaker
They're out of white horse and he has a great area. I've been up there with friends. I've done tag along hunts with friends and, and we've killed some nice doll sheep and, and a stone and,
00:46:51
Speaker
I'm confident. It'll be fun. That stone sheep has just gotten out of control. yeah Yeah. They've all gone up a lot. I mean, you could get a doll sheep for about 15 grand 10 years ago.
00:47:06
Speaker
You know, I think my buddy went my buddy went four years ago. I think he paid 24 and now it's over 30, right? I don't know of any, don't know of a doll sheep hunt that you could buy for under 45 right now.
00:47:18
Speaker
Really? Yeah. no and um All the NWT guys are 55 plus. Really? Yeah, because of the big die off in Alaska, right? So, okay.
00:47:30
Speaker
Nobody wants to go to Alaska because the success rate so low. And so they're all heading to NWT in the Yukon. Okay, so maybe the NWT is $45,000 and then Alaska is $30,000 because you're not guaranteed to get a sheep.
00:47:43
Speaker
yeah so Yeah. And then the stones have gone up. It was like $45,000, $75,000, and now it's $100,000. $100,000, yeah, $110,000. To go shoot a stone. and it's like And then same thing for the desert. If mean you want a desert, it's going to be $75,000 in Mexico.
00:47:59
Speaker
now they get that done. um In Rocky, I imagine... i mean, I even know you get a Rocky. How do you get a Rocky? i mean, they might have them up there, I guess, do they in Canada? Yeah. Alberta has ah an area where you can buy a tag with an outfitter.
00:48:14
Speaker
And I think Southeastern BC still has an area where you can just buy a tag. Other than the Unlimiteds, mean, you got to draw that tag or buy a governor's tag. Right.
00:48:25
Speaker
Yep. Yeah. Put in for 30 years of preference points. yeah well even then you're not going to draw it because it's going to creep right i mean 30 years it's going to be 60 years by the time we get to that point i mean yeah it's it's one of those things like they talk about the poncegant tag if you start putting in for the poncegant right now it'll be 100 plus years so you draw it with point creep wow yeah so i mean i don't know who's going to be living that long to kill poncegant buck but right it's not going to happen right the point system is out of control i i it know what your take is on it. Like I always say, like if I can be like a king, king fishing game for a day across the country, to turn the whole country into Idaho.
00:49:05
Speaker
or or New Mexico and just be everything is a draw yeah across the board and just eliminate points. And everybody who has 30 points, I have 15 points a lot states. We just lose them and say, you know It's for the future. we this is, we failed. The system has failed. It's completely just imploding on itself right now.
00:49:22
Speaker
Yeah. Cause it's like, I can't, I'm getting crept every year in Colorado. It's the third year in row got crept for elk. I feel like nine points, it was 100% draw out every year, just getting tripped every freaking year on that tag. And it's just same thing, I wanted to draw a Kaibab tag. And when I was originally putting in, it was like eight or nine points to draw it. Now it's like 13 or 14, you know, and it just keeps going up and up and up every year. It's just, yeah, yeah I think the trick is I'm gonna move to i'm goingnna move to Arizona next year for for but most of my time i'm just to get an arizona residency license you know and way i do that me like then i go to idaho and get a residency license up there and just start doing that you know live in wyoming for a year and get a residency license that's the real trick to uh that's be doing if i was you i mean i could live in idaho for six months and get that residency tag yeah yep up there and get up there and do it my business is sold i guess you wouldn't able be willll be the president of wyoming yeah maybe you can't they'll probably let you they'll understand
00:50:13
Speaker
Maybe. i'm sure I'm sure nobody's fighting to get your job either. You probably got voluntold to get this thing. So yeah, no one's out there trying to get that thing. Yeah. The train ran me over. So yeah, you get voluntold sometimes. I'm president a few different boards that way.
00:50:27
Speaker
So what what is your take on that? We talked about this the other day and it's like one of those more power to you things, right? Like the same thing happened with side-by-sides, right? Like those side-by-sides were worth 28, but they really, they're worth 40 because nobody can get them.
00:50:42
Speaker
So, I mean, what's your take on the $110,000 tag pushing everybody out of it except for the guy with a lot of money, man, it's as a businessman, it's hard to fight it.
00:50:54
Speaker
It's hard to talk about capitalism. If you fight it, you know, exactly. And and none of us ever dreamed that they would be on 110 grand. Right. I mean, like you say, wasn't that long ago. You could go doll hunting for between 10 and 15,000 and, um, even mountain goats.
00:51:13
Speaker
I mean, I bought a mountain goat hunt in 2018, I think for 10,500 bucks, you know, now, i mean, you can't buy a mountain goat for under 20 grand in Canada.
00:51:27
Speaker
It's just, it's not happening. You know, it doubled in five years. So, yeah. I don't know how to combat that. Like you say, that capitalism and, and, uh, just, that's the thing. It's one of those things where you, it's, you believe in capitalism, you can't complain about it, but it's not like the outfitters are hunting harder. There's getting triple the price for the tags now and they're taking it, you know, which you can't fight. I can't blame them. had an outfit in business Canada, I would take a, I would take 110. I wouldn't be virtuous and be like, well, I'm going to charge 45. Right.
00:52:01
Speaker
right You know, I'm not trying to get 60 more grand for the tag. It's just the hard thing is for guys like me, you're just like sitting there like, man, like, doesn't matter what kind of money I have. i just can't justify $110,000 for a sheep tag, you know?
00:52:13
Speaker
Exactly. Even if you can afford to go do it, how do you justify that? You know, I'm going to try to give that to some kids, you know, or some, my foster ministry or something than do $110,000 sheep hunt. hard to justify.
00:52:25
Speaker
It is, but man, there's guys willing to pay it. I mean, you go to, we were at the, you go to West, did you go to sheep show this year? I did not, no. I mean, the amount of money people are throwing around is unreal. I mean, I think that New Mexico tag sold for like 1.3 or something like that.
00:52:41
Speaker
Yeah, yep, I think so, yep. It's crazy. I mean, the guy in Texas, they just broke Jason Harrison's or the guy in California. They broke Jason Harrison's record for the California sheep and he spent like 280 or something.
00:52:53
Speaker
Hadn't been broken since 26, 2018 when Jason's wife bought on that tag. They was just, they're throwing some money around for those tags, man. there's there's There's value in those things. I guess it's the things you can't have people want to buy.
00:53:05
Speaker
It is. And even the Wyoming tag, you know, we're not famous for giant bighorn rams. I mean, we just have average bighorn rams. And I can remember the day when our governor tag was like 25 or $28,000. And this year, several of them, there there's five there's five governor tags for sheep in Wyoming. And I think three of them so far have gone for over 300 grand.
00:53:30
Speaker
Wild. Yeah. Freaking Jimmy John is buying all the sheep up.
00:53:38
Speaker
So, uh, I should get that guy. i didn't figure out how to get that guy on the podcast. I'm sure he doesn't have time for me, but be kind of cool to hear his story. Yeah. Um, so we always end this thing with a hunting story.
00:53:49
Speaker
doesn't have to be your biggest animal. doesn't have to be your animal. can just be a story where you failed. It be a story where you killed your first year. I don't care anything. It's that campfire story you like to pull out and tell. you give us a good, good hunting story?
00:54:01
Speaker
Man, that's interesting. Well, that's, The elk behind me was probably one of the coolest hunts I've been on with my daughter. um
00:54:10
Speaker
We found that bull late in the evening one day and we couldn't get to it to kill it. We knew it was big, but we didn't realize it was as big as it is.
00:54:22
Speaker
Anyway, the next morning we we got in there and we got on it, but it got into the timber before we could get it killed. And so we started my my daughter a fire and got her warming up. And my buddy and I went and we started glassing into this timber.
00:54:39
Speaker
We were on top of a ah rim and it was 400 yards down to where the timber started. So you you could see in it pretty good. And anyway, we picked that timber apart probably for two hours before I found one side of that elk antler where he was bedded, had his head land with one antler on the ground.
00:55:03
Speaker
And, uh, all you could see was the top of that one antler. And so we kept, we set a spot and scope up on that antler. And then I, and left my buddy watching it and I, I just went down the rim glassing into the timber until we, um, it probably took me 30, 40 minutes until I could find a window that we could actually shoot through to kill that bull. That was pretty cool hunt.
00:55:28
Speaker
it take her a while to get in the scope or you ever get her on it pretty quick? I was able to get her on it pretty good. Um, and, and she had killed, i think that was her, that was her third bull. So, um, she was, yeah, she was young yet. She was 14 when she killed that elk. And, um, yeah. yeah So 14 with a four Oh four That's something to write home about.
00:55:52
Speaker
Yeah. Pretty cool hunt. And just the way it all, laid out there, you know, hunting it kind of like a whitetail, you know, still hunting it through the timber, trying to find it bedded in there.
00:56:04
Speaker
What was she shooting, your 6.5 song? She shot a, believe it or not, a 6.5 Creedmoor. Okay. Everybody hates 143 ELDX Hornady.
00:56:17
Speaker
We just shot everything. we We were in Africa, and all they shoot is a 143 ELDX, 6.5 Creedmoor, all the guns, big 20-pound guns. They make them heavy, and We shot everything from a kudu down to a freaking, you know, bus buck with those things. and they weren't shot an ostrich. It worked. So I was pretty impressed with it. Honestly, for much as I knock on the six five cream or it works.
00:56:37
Speaker
So you shoot him in his bed then, huh? She did. I got it all on video. She's yeah. Shot it in his bed and then it never even got out of its bed. Hit it hard enough that. Yeah. Yeah. It stayed in its bed. And I think my two kids, um, I bought them, uh,
00:56:55
Speaker
ah savage high country so they could beat it up and you know not feel bad about it and uh my boy just killed a bear with that gun ah week ago i think that was the 21st or 22nd animal that that 6.5 creed morse killed by those two kids so yeah i tell people all the time man like i just you don't need a i know you build custom rifles but man like With the technology that's out there today, you can get it done.
00:57:24
Speaker
i always tell them, spend more money on your binoculars or on tags than you do on your rifle, you know? Buy more tags. you can do You can kill a lot more stuff with the old rifle and tags than you can with the brand new rifle and no tags in your pocket.
00:57:37
Speaker
You bet. Yep, good optics and patience and... spending money on ammo, learning how to shoot that rifle is probably more important. That's key.
00:57:48
Speaker
I don't even know how many 6.5 criminal rounds I shot this year, probably a couple thousand, and I still can't shoot great. I don't know how I would feel showing up on $100,000 sheep hunt with an $800 Savage High Country, though.
00:58:03
Speaker
Yeah, i know. I know. But if it was if it came to me between like, I think if I'm getting the stone sheep hunt, I'd probably have the rifle, you know? Yeah. But if it came between, if it if I only had 110 grand in the bank and I ah already had the Savage High Country, I'd probably just take that rifle and buy the sheep tag, you know?
00:58:18
Speaker
100%, yep. I wouldn't buy the $10,000 rifle and be $10,000 short on the tag. Yep. But no, I get what you're saying there for sure. There are levels to it, but man does. That was a fun, that fun pod, man. I love everything you guys up there at Wyoming, uh, outdoorsman association.
00:58:36
Speaker
Where can we find you guys? How can we help you? So we are on the internet. Um, Wyoming outdoorsman.com. And we have, we have a great website. Um, and you guys, you guys have been awesome.
00:58:49
Speaker
I haven't met you till today, but you guys have donated every year. And, uh, and we we run your tripods through this year. We, we paired up your tripod with a Maven spotting scope and ran it through the live auction and,
00:59:04
Speaker
And that money's going to to a youth program. So we appreciate it. That's awesome. I had Mike Olegrand on yesterday from Maven on the podcast. He's ah he's a friend of mine. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I went over there visited his place. i went up there and visited him and Kafaru couple months ago.
00:59:18
Speaker
Or September, whatever. I was up there hunting antelope. So, yeah, really good guy. i love Maven. love their optics. and Yeah. Hardcore Wyoming boys, that's for sure. You bet. yeah Yeah. So you guys, you want to, if you're in Wyoming, you want to support Wyoming outdoorsman's go there, go on the website, support them, join. I'm sure they want more members, go do their dinners, go to their banquets.
00:59:37
Speaker
And a man hearing about how you guys hunt coyotes all the time is getting me excited. I'm to kill some dogs out here in San Diego and do my part too. Perfect. Save some deer. Yep. Save some deers. Yeah. Fawn's life matter.
00:59:49
Speaker
Thanks Dustin. It was a good time, man. Thank you. i appreciate you having me on. Anytime. All right.