All right, welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance podcast. I'm your host Dirk Durham, and this week's guest does a guy I've been following on Instagram for years. I think the first time I ever met Ryan was at Western Hunt and Jordan Harberson pointed you out and said, hey, you see that guy. This is like ten years ago. He said, you see that guy over there, He's got pictures of big bulls. And I'm like, oh really yeah. So I'm like, hey, man, you gotta I heard you
a lot of pictures of big bulls. And you looked at me like what.
Are you talking about?
Like the hell are you? What are you talking about? But on Instagram that's what caught my attention once I kind of started following along and figuring out out who you were, and it was a lot of pictures of big bull whether it was trail camp picks and VIDs or some gripping drins from clients and whatnot, and uh, you know, some shed horns and stuff you'd picked up. But anyway, welcome to the show. Ryan Carter from DC.
Outfitters, Thanks sir, nice to be here.
Yeah. Yeah, So where do you live currently or how long you live there, I guess actually I should say.
I'm south Salt Lake fifty sixty miles. Probably consider it central Utah.
Okay, Yeah, have you lived there your whole life for?
Is that?
Okay?
Grope guiding right here, I've kind of migrated south, like, I mean, there's still big bulls right here, but down south, like I'm attracted to the desert. I just do better down there.
Yeah, that's it's kind of crazy, like the different landscapes that Utah holds, from big beautiful timber to like date sage flats in the desert, and there's giant bulls in all of them. Would you say, there's kind of a misconception, like, man, there's just four hundred inch bowls running around everywhere in Utah.
Dude, I don't say fwords very often. I just don't see them. I mean, we've had our run ins. Jeez, I probably haven't seen a real four hundred inch bowl since probably since Jimmie's bull died in Arizona. We kill a lot of three eighties, three nineties, like breaking books kind of our our goal what we shoot for. Yeah, but the F words are are few and far between, especially nowadays.
So yeah, It's funny you talk when you get to talking to people and you know they're like, oh yeah, utah, yeah, yeah, there's four hundred inch bulls, and you know you talk about like somebody that got a three eighty oh, three eighty. Yeah, there's some four hundred inches around, Like people just throw it around sometime. It's like it's the new three hundred inch bowl, you know in some of these places so.
Well, and to some people, you know, I know some guys down Arizona, that's that's their life, right, Like they kill four so that's what they do. The rest of us SAPs. Man, a three point fifty is a giant bull, three forties a giant pole. I'm not that guy to ever start talking big numbers, but I do enjoy, like, man, just focusing on the upper age class, like that's my life, that's what I care about, and we do a pretty good job of it.
Yeah think yeah, Yeah, You've got some great, great pictures of bulls on the hoof and then bulls in the hands of happy clients. Yeah, it's it's awesome to see. Did you grow up in a hunting.
Family then yeah, my dad hunts. My grandpa's a big hunter. Big rifle guys like honestly, and I grew up just kind of a punk, not going down that hole. But I didn't get into hunting until a really bad dirt bike crack. I was probably twenty seven, twenty eight. Oh wow, walks into my local shop and Kevin Wilke was running the bow shop. He's uh I did. For those who don't know him, he's like the marketing manager for qu I'm like, dude, I want to get into this, and
he's like, oh, let's go, let's go. Here's some boats. He's fun and we still talk quite a bit. You know, same hometown.
Yeah, that's cool. So you could say wrecking your bike was a life changing event.
Yeah, well it was a bad wreck. I was in the hospital quite a while. Honestly, it's it's everything kind of shifted in my life. Then that's when I met Sean de Gray, who runs the Tack. Got out of the hospital, me and him went like scouting for deer with a mutual friend. We've been friends since I got out of the hospital. My wife had sold all my bikes. I had little girls at the time. Yeah, it's shifted things for sure.
Oh yeah, So what made you want to get into too guiding.
So I don't remember what year was, it had to have been around three. I drew my limited entry oak Tag local Mountains here. Killed a really big bull at any time. He's three sixty eight, but at that time I'm in Utah. Utah wasn't killing that big of bulls like he was. He was a good bull. Yeah, And
I was like, yeah, I get into this. So started kicking around talking to people knew a couple outfitters, started with one guy, did a couple of years, went to Christians and Arms, did a few yers years there, and then twenty eleven decided to start our own gig and running a sense.
Yeah. Yeah, it seems you know, there's a lot of people always asking the same question, how do I get into the hunting industry? I think some folks just see people, you know, living the lifestyle or doing the doing the They see the most visible part. They don't see the invisible part, you know, the hard work on the back end and and stuff. What do you have any advice for people who want to get into the hunting industry and make a go of it? Now?
I don't I don't know that I'm in the industry like I have another business, I run, I have, I have three girls. I'm busy, and I'd never considerself my that part. But you know i'd My whole focus is finding and killing big bulls. It's all I care about, It's all I do. I could care less about the industry part of it, other than I get to meet really cool people like you. I mean, sure I might
have ran into you at the XBO. We might be friends, but it would have been in passing and you wouldn't have been able to follow up and see all my cool bulls. So thank you, Jordan Harveson. But you know, my passions are a little bit deeper than what industry is. And for all those kids that I say they want to get into the industry, I always my answer is always the same, like don't get get a real job,
make real money, and buy real tags. The industry guys all have to work when it's hunting season, Like they don't get to come play like you and I do, Like unless you're a guide, unless you're full time YouTube whatever. I rotate my schedule around everybody else's needs because I'm a service provider, not a product, so things are really different for me and my crew.
Yeah, yeah, that's great advice. I've my kids, you know, growing up, they always they're like, I want to do something I'm passionate about, you know. I'm like, we have to kind of be careful about mixing passion and turning that into work, right, you know, I really love this, I really love that. But I always told them, like, get a job that gets paid you, pays you really well and gives you enough time off to where you can afford to go do your passion and go do that,
you know, in your free time. But you know, don't mix I don't mix work work with pleasure, maybe because you'll probably be a lot happier.
There's a lot to say about that, you know. I'm come mid September. My job is a job, you know, and we should be smiling and laughing like I I Opening Day. I'm gonna tell a quick story. Opening day. Had had the bull, one of the bulls we wanted to kill. Put him to bed that morning, just typically a layup spot, kind of tucked him in these beds, kind of hit him in the spot and there's just kind of a draw. They usually work up the draw
in the evening. So we had kind of staged to set up like he was just going to work up to us at night. Well, a storm is blowing in the winds got a little erratic. I told the guy like, hey, let's back out, let's back out. He's like, no, he's coming. He's coming. Got sixty yards out, wind shifted. We'll kind of headed up on this mesa. I'm like, well, busted, I said. You know, the guy was older. I said, dude, can you run. He's like, yeah, I can run. I'm like, okay,
if we can run, we can make it. And we we swing around this big toe and we get into the saddle where the bulls kind of always typically cross and I'm like, dude, sixty yards ahead, you see that pinion. He goes yeah. I said, if you can get at the base of that opinion, he's going to walk through that saddle. And he started to go and he got twenty yards from the pinion and the bull steps out one hundred yards away. Pinned. Just wow, he's got us right yeah, And for me, like I'm like, well, that's
too bad. Like you know, my bow hunters were typically you know, one stock out of nine works, and that's how it works. Like I'm used to it and that's just the game. And so the bullpins us sees we were in his spot where he was headed and he's like, nope, I'm out, turns around, walks away. He came and up to that point, like I kind of had this big rock. I sat down. I looked over the most beautiful sunset. You know, the desert is just the sunset's in southern Utah,
northern Arizona. Just unrich. I'm watching the sun I'm like, this is red. And he comes walking back. He sits by me, and you know, I'm just kind of watching the sun thinking. I look over and he's mad. He's hot. Oh man, kind of kind of tore into me a little bit, like that wasn't supposed to play out that way. This is what it is. And I'm like, whoa, Like We're going to do this nine more times, probably on that bowl. Relax, like enjoy the sunset, like we're good man.
I love to hunt, and so it's one of those things. It's it's it's work, but at the same time, it is cool work. I don't I don't know if it's a it's a catch twenty two.
I guess yeah, yeah, yeah, I think people kind of forget to like they put so much pressure on the outcome, they kind of forget to enjoy the whole process. Yeah, and you fail nine out of ten stocks, right, you know people kind of think, oh, yeah, you probably call in bulls, you know, left and right. It's the same
thing with calling in l you know. For me, uh, you know, maybe one out of every ten bulls, I get the bugle, we'll get into archery range and and maybe we'll have a shot because it's you know, maybe too brushy or.
Whatever, but or if he's the caliber you're looking for, Yeah, I deal with limited entry. It's you and I'd run kind of different worlds. Sure that goes same species, but yeah, I'll call in you know, twenty or thirty three, twenty three thirty class bulls to one big, big bull. And I'm not complaining, Like it's awesome, like I see cool things. But at the same time, it's like I've had clients. I had one guy say like, dude, you call in one more three forty bowl, I'm gonna wrap this barrel
around your head. You're driving me nut. That's the right, Like, enjoy it. It's fun.
This is fun, man. Yeah, Yeah, that kind of makes it weird and tough sometimes. But but I think you know, you know what makes you tick and what makes you happy, So there's always that.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
How many years or excuse me, how many days a year do you spend out in the field with hunting related stuff, whether it's guiding or shed hunting or setin trail cams?
Mhm? You know what, I really don't know the answer to that. I I don't shed hunt as much as I used to. You know, I've gotten a little older. I used to really get a kick out of Well, two things happened. One the state got rid of trail cameras. Like we have a season now, right Like, I put them out first of July, pick them up into July, and that's all I get. Used to be that I could run them all year. I like to kind of watch what the elk we're doing all winter. I've tried
to go in and get their sheds. I really tried to retain as much info as I could. Pulling the trail cameras really kind of took that fire out of me. In fact, I don't really even shed hunt where my bulls are anymore. So I don't know I don't even know how to answer that question. It's just things have changed. I've gotten older. I'm push them fifty now. I don't have that drive that I used to have. I would guess I'm probably sixty, between sixty and ninety a year.
Yeah, yeah, Back when you were running your full camera game days, back before they had the season, man, you must have had an incredible amount of photos to go through and just you know, with that many cameras out, how many cameras would you typically run back then?
Well, I mean when we say back then, you know it trail as, trail cameras evolved. Things got better, you know, like used to be that you'd put in your thirty five mil cam and the cows would come in and get on your salt, and you got a bunch of moo cow pictures and you hung your ten cameras that were you know, one hundred bucks, which seems so expensive, and most of them were moo cows, and it was
fifty dollars to develop the film. And it was I think, you know, fourteen fifteen got to where we're using more SD cards. I probably got into like twenties, you know, twenty cameras or so seventeen eighteen is when I really started dropping some cameras and I got out to like, oh, I'd be one hundred and fifteen ish a year by myself for me and Aaron. That was helping me anymore. We just have a month, so I kind of regulate what we put out because we have to pull them all.
But I still think, you know, there's nine guides working with us now, and I think between all of us we push almost two hundred cameras between the units. Yeah, but it's thirty or forty each. It's palatable before it wasn't.
That's a lot of batteries. You probably buy those things in bulk off Amazon.
Amazon's great for bulk for sure.
Do you run the do you run the lithium double a's or what are you running those?
I did when I could have them out in the winter, so lithium doesn't freeze as fast as al alkali does, so the winner. I always ran the lithiums because it saved me cameras so they weren't exploding. I didn't have battery acid everywhere, sure, so yes I used to. But now that I only have I mean I technically I could drop them off in January, but most of my
spots I can't access till June. Their high altitude, most of them, like the plateau that I spend most of my time on to eleven thousand feet and I drop into the high desert the nine thousand foot range quite a bit, but it's not worth putting cameras out till July, so I run the industrial Alkali set. Most of my cameras on video anymore, which which eats cards, but for
six weeks of information it's different. So ten eight years ago I was I was running about I think we'd pull about twenty thousand good photos a year, and right now we're probably between five hundred and two thousand.
Okay, yeah, wow, twenty thousand good ones? So yeah, how many bad ones? Undred thousand?
I have about a terra of storage just in trail camera photos. One terror, it's a lot. That's great.
Yeah, So I'm gonna shift gears real quick here. So it's Today's Pendleton Whiskey Q and A. Every episode we ask a question sponsored by Pendleton Whiskey. This one is it's a pretty easy one. It should be simple, elk or mule deer?
Which is better? I dude, Yeah, that's an easy question.
Okay, we'll good.
And so I used to guy mule there, oh three oh four to two thousand. I think my last one was like ten or eleven, and I was a young guy. But you know, we had a unit called the Henry Mountains. I don't know if you've heard about it Mountains. It had been closed down for five or six years. That open back up. One of my buddy's dads and mentors. I still credit him to a lot of the things I've learned today. Drew a sportsman's tag, which gives him
state wide access. We killed a giant meal deer like two sixty seven I think, and after that I kind of got hooked on the Henrys and I think we killed eight bucks that would break two twenty ish oh man through those couple of years, and it was a riot. I kicked myself because at the time I had this like twenty year old mentality. I didn't take pictures with the guys. I'm like that it's their buck, and sometimes we'd have pack out pictures that kind of thing. But
I've learned really quick. The hardest part about meal there was just finding them because in my opinion, and this is limited entry, right, but it's not public land. It was once you found them. If you get the wind right, like as good as dead most of the time. Didn't take eight or nine stocks. It might take two, right if you could, if you knew how to work the wind, muld or die. And I'm not like discrediting any mule
deer guys at all. I just when I have that debate with people, I say, look, man, when you start tipping over four hundred inch bulls and you can tell me how many stocks it took for each one, then you can start telling me which one's harder. I won't point any fingers until you sit down and do it, and then we can sit and compare notes.
So I love it. I typically just say, well, which one bugles, and that's that's the one that settles it for me. Like, well, they don't bugle, so they're not cool.
There's that too. But you're good at talking to elk. I talked to them by breaking sticks, you know, when things get quiet. I I try to sound like an elk and it works, so I do things a little bit different. I can't talk to elk like you do.
Yeah, well that's the great the great part about talking to help though, is like you using you know, sticks and stuff, and people have to keep their mind open to that too. It's like, yeah, I just can't bugle or I can't calcol or whatever to save means. But I don't know how many times I've I've been walking, you know, popping brush and stuff and have bolls, you know,
bugle at me. And if i'd have just not bugled, if I'd probably just picked up a stick and raked or something, I both probably would have came right in.
I never tried that.
I'm gonna I'm gonna try that next time.
Well, so for me, I'm always calling for clients, right, and I wouldn't say I'm a bad call or I'm not. I work out pretty well. But that quiet time when they hold up, with that quiet time when they kind of pause, and I'm like, oh crap, I know they're in the range of the bow. Either doesn't have a shot or whatever's going. I didn't pay eight thousand for this tag. I walk over and take the biggest log and bust it against your tree, because I'm telling you, like,
when they hold up, they're like, something's not right. But if they hear oh no, there's elk down there. They keep going more often than not. If I can make them like at least think that, Okay, what I heard was an elk, I'm gonna keep pursuing I can get them to feed past that shooter. So, like I said, I I'm not a great talker to elk. Like when Corey asked me, like, hey, dude, what did you say, I'm like, I don't know. Just blowing my tube. That's
that's what it is for me. I get them to stop pausing by making a little more noise, making myself seem like an elk just far enough you can't quite see to keep walking past my shooter. And that that's that's how I work out.
Yeah, that's that's some great advice. I think a lot of folks who come from let's say the Midwest or the Deep South or the East Coast, they come out thinking, Okay, we're gonna do this kind of like wild why tail hunting or whatever. And and you want to be quiet when you're white tail hunting, right, that just doesn't work with with helk hunting. You have to be noisy elkra
noisy animals. You know, you you hear a bowl coming man he's popping brush and snapping this and that and making noise and and yeah, you have to add that realism in there. So yeah, I love that.
They are big, that's for sure. Yeah.
So you mentioned shed hunting some of the bulls that you've been had on camera. How hard was that to like, Okay, we find these things in the summer range, we follow them through the rut, and then you know they're gonna turn up on the winter range somewhere and then be like, oh man, Jackpie, I remember this guy, I pick up a set of sheds. I mean, how how often did
that happen back when you used to do that? Is that like pretty common or was it like oh wow, like you don't normally find the guy that you've seen in August or or July.
Hm, me personally grabbing one of those bulls was very rare, pretty few and far between. Impact. It's just it's such a small world anymore. I Like, I know, people say the industry, they say our community. It's like it's big. It's it's really not. So I did a lot better with just kind of keeping my tabs on social media, watching these people that I know hit that area and bam, they pop up holding these giant sheds that oh that's cool, that's this bull like, and I'd hit them up like, hey, bro,
like how big is he? What does you score?
Like?
Can I take some looks at him? Like where are you at? And I'd meet up with these kids and measure the bulls out and then have an idea of what they scored the next year. Now, when I was in my twenties, we didn't have big elk. I did find a few, but it was a different thing. It was my thirties that things kind of shifted and we started getting into that world. My guides. I have two or three guides that are really good at that, like really good and keeping tabs on them all winter, picking
them up. West just found one side off one of our biggest bulls, and he's as big as we thought he was. And that's it's nice to see. But if I was to go over statistics and say how often that happens, it's pretty rare. It's really rare.
Yeah, I'd be quite it's quite an achievement. Then whenever it does get put together, like holy cow, that's him, you know, pretty exciting. Instead of just finding some random ones you don't have any history with.
I get excited easy Dirt when I find him on camera, I get that excited. Did I start freaking out? So yeah, you too.
I run a lot of cameras too, nothing like the game you do. But and I'm like, I'm so jacked if I see a bull come back in Idaho here. Man, it's so tough, you know, with our our winters and our wolf population, and you know it's it's not limited entry at least where I'm going. And you're just like, you never know if if a ball is going to turn up again the next year, and you get him a couple three years in a row on camera, You're like, oh, wow, man,
this guy's good. He's he knows where to hide and how to avoid all the pitfalls that life has to throw at him. So yeah, I can relate. It's like Christmas every time you open that card and you start seeing, oh, man, I think that might be the same one. So then you're digging back in your in your hard drive, on your and your archives there to see if that's really the same one or maybe one that just look like it.
So yeah, I get pretty I think that's one of the best parts of ELT cunning is putting the pieces together. It's something I'll never like get sick of. I never get tired of it. Not for me, Like killing them is just killing them, like it's just it's another dead bull. But over the years, like learning the things I do from them, finding out like man, I have hit bulls that hit the same water to the same day a year later. Like I had one bull hit the same
spot three years running on July seventh, Wow. And I had one bowl the last two years come into the same little valley September first, the last two years, and I mean big bulls, like old age class bulls that I still didn't connect with. I didn't kill of those two. I didn't kill either one of them. But it's putting those pieces together and seeing like geez, what is he doing on these dates? Why does he pull in here?
What's going on? Whether it's you know, their feed, the acorns came on, they moved off the top, whatever it is, it changes their behavior, you're And those are the fun little pieces to put together, you know, finding the sheds or picking up the getting the trail camp picks, that's that's cool too. But learning lessons from some of these older pools. That's that's fun.
Yeah, that's so cool. So what's your opinion? Maybe you don't have opinion on it, but what's your opinion on shed seasons? Is that a good thing? Is that a bad thing? Is it doesn't really matter to you? Or what do you think?
Well, I mean everything's everything weighs into that, right. I really think there's some places where it it's a there's a lot to be said about overregulation, right, Like our states come in, like they've treated our resources like their own. They've tried to pull the people's from doing something that they should be able to just go do anytime. Like who's to say when it's okay that somebody goes snowmobiling January twentieth, and who's out there hiking or killing coyotes
or whatever they're out doing. So I'm not a fan of that. However, I personally have pushed out too hard. I'll like, I know it happens, it happens pretty regular, and so I know that there's a lot of value in trying to put a season on that gives them a chance, like it's such a detrimental time and their fat contents down and on a hard winner. Shed hunters will kill a bull. They will, and so I'm not
completely against it either. It's just one of those things that I wish, you know, we had a good enough community to know when that's right and wrong. But since we don't, the government has to come in and regulate us, and it changes things. It makes things hard, It makes people bicker, it makes people tattletale on other people for doing something that just seems so petty and silly. I'd never say shed hunting takes a lot of talent. I'm not that guy. You don't have to get the wind right,
you don't have to pattern anything. Your homework pays off one hundred percent. It does, like getting out in February of March and watching these bulls, like homework pays off. But it's not something that just takes a lot of talent, but some self regulation to be nice.
Right, Yeah, yeah, I agree with a lot of that. I'm not a big shed hunter like. I enjoy it, but I don't put much effort into it. So I can't say I have big stacks of antlers like some of these guys have. But I do enjoy it. But I can I see that some of what you're saying too, you know, they'll shut it down for shed hunting, but other outdoor enthusiasts are free to go do whatever they want. So I feel like that's a little unfair or a
little narrow minded. If you're really trying to help the animals, maybe they should, you know, close it down for everybody for a certain time, like truly, like don't interfere with the animals right now for anyone, you know. And I'm I'm with you. I don't like a lot of you know, government overreach and saying, you know, it's a free country. We should be able to go do whatever we want.
You know, we have to kind of you have to look think bigger than ourselves sometimes, you know, it's like, you know, let's let let's let those animals have a break, But that means, like you say, snowmobilers, No, you guys can't go up there, you know, hikers, you know, kyo hunters. Maybe maybe not. I just don't think, you know, if they're going to shut it down for one group, they
should probably shut it down for all of them. And I think I think more people would be probably have more respect for the the idea of it than anything if they did that.
Well, you know, we look back like hunters as a as a whole. I mean, if you look back like Wisconsin had a winner that was super bad, came in early, all the deer were dying, it was too deep to get to feed. Most of the state turned in their deer tags and all the money that they would have taken to go hunting. The hunters jump back into buying feed and trying to rescue some of these deer, and still most of them died. Like it was a really harsh winner. But I still think we have a lot
of people with the same values. I think if we let people give them a chance, I think a lot of them would step up at right times when we have a bad winner like we did two years ago. And I think if they simply asked, hey, give them a chance, stay out of there, like we need to try to keep our wildlife alive. I think most hunters one,
I think would you just what they asked? And two, I think they would self regulate that there's always the guys, Like they're going to meet the guys at their truck at the bottom of the canyon, Like, bro, what are you doing up there? Stay in your truck they're not done the shows. Do you give them some time? I think we govern ourselves a lot of the time, and so I have a hard time when government comes in
and tries poking us. So, man, when you start going down the regulation track, I get a little upset.
Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, I get it. I can see that for sure. We'll flip flop a little bit here. Back to what you were saying about the camera season in Utah is so short now that you don't do You don't run the amount of cameras or time that you used to do. You think that has and it's been a few years now, you think that's positively positively impacted animals? Negatively didn't make a difference. What's your opinion on that whole thing?
Zero difference zero. You know, I had a friend draw Tag. In fact, he killed a pretty big bull. I had kind of talked him through it a bit, but you know, he pulled me on on a podcast to talk to me about it, and you know he was telling me, he was like, you know, I think I think if we still had the camera rules, I think if I could have kept running them, I hard have figured out
where he disappeared on on day nine eleven. I think I could have killed him, And I said, you know, I saw a lot of guys with the same mentality hold out on that tag, passed the three sixty, past the three seventy, knowing there was a three to ninety and eat their tag and it was about fifty to fifty. Like some people were successful. Most people ate their tag, and now it's gone, like everyone's just like, oh, that
was the glory days. And I'm like, maybe I never successfully because I don't have service and cell camera things were back then still fairly new, right, every card I had to get to I had to walk to and pull sure, you know, get out my DSLR, flipped through it and see what was there. And I'd have to go through the routes and find all these cameras and I'd spend half my day doing stuff that I didn't need to do. I really haven't seen our success rise or fall any I think we're still as good as
we were. And I just when I look back at my successes, none of them revolved around the camera like it was cool to have them running. And man, I missed the bogling videos, you know, I missed the rut on trail cameras. But it's in my opinion, and they made this law through legislation without letting our state be involved. And they really hosed like to do it yourself, hunter from competing against guys like me. They really did that.
Those guys, you know, they're lucky to get fifteen cameras out and they didn't get to hunt these units the year prior or the year prior to that. They uncle might have had the tag four years ago, they might have an idea where to go. But man, they really shafted those guys from competing against the guys who are down there every year, the outfitters that the guys that just mean they're getting paid to be there. Yeah, it's just another instant of the state coming in with no
science backing it. You know, Nevada. When Utah made this law, Nevada, I had already been doing it for three four years. Okay, zero increase an opportunity, zero increase in age class. In fact, if anything had fallen, the science pointed to the fact that the cameras do nothing yet because somebody had their feelings hurt somewhere and I could name names, but because you know, a little little baby Casey had his feelings hurt. We had to lose, lose an opportunity for everybody else.
And while he thought he was helping to do it yourself, Hunter, while he thought he was intervening with the people that needed the help, he really really shafted them in a bad way.
Yeah, so you think most of the intent was like, hey, let's level this playing field to the between the outfitters and the common guy that just drew the tag.
That statement was used over and over and over again, that level of playing field and I'm not afraid to hunt. I heard it over and over again, and I just thought, man, you guys like you have no idea what you're saying. You have no idea the amount of field time it takes to do what some of these other guys do, if that's what you need, you.
Know, man, you know we kind of see that stuff here in Idaho with their own game commission. Sometimes I hate to throw rocks, but sometimes, you know, people want to make rules around things they don't understand that much too. You know, a lot of the people may be pushing for these rules and regulations of different things. They they don't actively run cameras, they don't run lighted knocks. They've never shot a flint lock muzzleoder versus a in line or whatever. And man, it is hard to like get
people to wrap their heads around stuff. And they've never even participated and know anything about trail cameras or in inline muzzleloaders or whatever. They just think, oh, you got trail cameras, you can just kill any bowl you want.
Now.
It just doesn't work that way. We run sell cameras at my buddy's place in Kansas, and they'll be deer on it. They'll be whether we're hunting deer, turkeys, you know, turkeys. Oh man, there's gobblers on that camera right now. Well, you can run over there within fifteen minutes and you'll be damned if you'll find a gobbler or a turkey, Like where do they go? And in fact, you would almost it makes you start chasing your tail a little bit on those things. Pretty soon you're just kind of
going here, going there. It's like, this isn't good information. We just need to go find turkeys that want to talk and hunt them and just just do that. And we always seem to do better when we do that. So I don't, yeah, I don't think they're leveling the playing field at all by taking that away from people.
I agree, I agree.
So have you Have you heard about Idaho requiring non residents to buy a hunting license before they go shed hunting?
What is is that? What it came down to you? Like I had heard and I didn't follow ups. I don't shed hunt Idaho at all. Yeah, I thought they were requiring you to get a license for shed hunting. But that's what they're doing, is making them buy a hunting license in order to shed.
Out, Yes, a valid hunting license, non resident hunting license, which is what one hundred and twenty three bucks or one hundred and twenty some bucks for a non resident hunting license to come into the state of Idaho and shed hunt.
Have they have they gotten better about their I mean I watched social media, right I'm stuck. I didn't like we were talking about the industry guys like I don't get to go hunt Idaho because I'm stuck right in the industry doing my stuff here. In fact, I don't see a lot of the big bulls until October on
reposts because I don't have service for the month of September. Yeah, but you know, what I see on social media when people are trying to buy tags in Idaho, Like there's a huge weight, like twenty thousand people.
Oh yeah, it's crazy.
So does that are you in that line to get a tag in order to shed hunt or is it just like a habitat license.
Yeah, it's just a it's just a kind of like a habitat, just a journal hunting license. So you buy the hunting license, then then you wait in line to buy a tag of some kind of leather, it's deer, elk, whatever. But you can get a turkey tag or a bear tag or a you know, small like upland game permit on top of that general hunting license.
As far as that's concerned, it's probably smart on Idaho's part, because one, you're not increasing or decreasing opportunity, you're taking one of your natural resources and finding a way to make commission off it. Right, the state's pulling in some money, and it's pulling in money from non residence, which they should because the non residents technically aren't paying their taxes for those animals. I'm not against that. I don't think
it sounds like a terrible idea. Now, if they were making us wait in that twenty thousand line pool to go after them. Then you'd think, yeah, like that's that's going to really cripple money coming in. And as much as people want to complain about shed hunters and non residence coming in, I personally like see the small communities where I hunt, they're shut down really and and I'm between national parks, so where I guide it is kind of between Bryce and Capitol Reef and Zion National Park.
I spend a lot of time. I mean when I sit out on some of these lookouts and glass for bulls, Like there's more Chinese and French people than I ever see white Americans ever, and it's interesting and cool. But I spend a lot of time in the parks. These towns are shut down December, January, February, no money coming in. They've had to have saved their money from the summertime. And what's crazy is people start they start opening up their shops in March because here comes the shed hunters.
Hotels get booked, the restaurants get hit, the grocery stores have more money coming in. Complain all you want, but hunters bring in revenue. They really do, and it really helps the state. It helps the small towns, It helps these little people with these small businesses get by. So complain all you want about shied hunting being popular and
causing problems, it does. But at the same time, it helps out the community, It helps out other people, and in Idaho state, why not why not take the non residence money and help put it back into something else. So I don't think that's a bad call, terrible call. It would be different if it was changing opportunity, if it was changing you know, the age class of the of the animals. It's not, it's not really crippling anybody. It's just bringing in revenue. Good for Idaho. Yeah.
Yeah. They they also kind of thought like, well, instead of like imposing maybe seasons, we can maybe control a little bit of the flow of people coming in that you know that people just like on a whim and be like, hey, let's run over there real quick and go shd hunting. You maybe have less people just on a whim coming over. They'll maybe don't they're not willing to spend that extra hundred bucks or whatever that license
is that come over. But yeah, and I think it also keeps the residents of Idaho happy because there's a lot of you know, you know how it is that there. Every state has it. You know, they complain about non residents, you guys coming and shooting all of our deer or elk. I think there's a lot of grumblings amongst that. So I feel like maybe that kind of helps, you know, temper some of that beckering through the locals. You know, it's like, well they, hey, these guys are paying to come here.
You know.
I think probably some of them would like to set up a border that where they couldn't even come over and shed hunt or rifle hunt or anything, or bowhunt anything. But that's just not the way it works.
No, I think it belongs to the public. It needs to stay in graphs of the public's reach. And honestly, like I mean, if we're to look from a broader perspective, right, if we're to look at some of those things, like I have these guys that are like, dude, what do you do post in that picture? Like they know where that walla is? And I'm like, they might, but I know what it takes to get in there, and it's not easy, and in all reality, most people don't want to do the work. I don't stress about a lot
of that stuff. I look at it, I'm like, okay, makes sense. Cool. However, like the amount of people that really put in the work to do things like shed hunting, man, it requires some time, It requs. It requires some physical capabilities that not everybody has. Yea, And yeah, it's upsetting when when some dude picks up this set you've been watching since January, especially if the dudes from another state, Right, Joe Smo from Utah just showed up and pulled this
my favorite set. I get being mad, but I think that's just part of being mad. Yeah, I don't know.
Yeah, well, that's no different than going out to the to the dance hall. Right, some out of towner's come in and scoop up one of the local girls and take them home Marriham or whatever, and it's like, Hey, what the heck? People got to be mad about anything?
Yeah? For sure?
Well cool, I think we should wrap things up. You got any final comments on what maybe twenty twenty five is going to look like as far as antler growth, and you let a optimistic anticipation of the fall, you're probably just excited to go again.
I uh, man, it's going to be an interesting year. Like we down here, we haven't had any snow. Utah and Arizona are really going to struggle putting up the numbers that they have in years past. Now both can change on a dime, Like I really believe, you know, hard winters up north hurt animals, antler growth for sure, like even where I live right here, But southern Utah
and Arizon don't know. These these bulls that win around maces and and and down in the slick rock country, really all they need is water in March in April. If we get moisture put down right now, like these bulls will be as big as they ever are or as up north. It might be a tough year, But honestly, Utah hasn't. It hasn't shot for age class in northern Utah. It's if anything, it's used your northern Utah as an outlet to level our point creep, give people opportunity, and
they've kept Southern Utah to carry age class. So there's still you know, if we get some rain, I still think Utah can do fairly well. But at the same time, right now it looks really bleak. I think as a resident, I'm only allowed to put in for one species elk, deer or antelope, and then on resident across or once in a lifetime across the board, and all my points are on deer, and I hunt desert deer. I don't
go to the high altitude stuff. So for me, like I'm retaining my points, I'm going to buy a point or put in for some weird tag that I probably can't draw because it's just not that year that I think we're going to get the phenomenal growth in the desert, So I'm holding back. So it's hard to say. I don't stress about it. I just look forward to the good time because even on bad years, we kill good bulls. They're broken up, but they're still good, and I just like to have a good time.
Yeah yeah, awesome. Where can folks find you if they want to find you on social or your your website for your outfitting.
Business socials, Just Ryan DC Outfitters websites U d c O Utah or if you type in DC Outfitters Utah, it'll pop up. You can find me either place like I do a lot of social stuff, as you know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, give them a follow on Instagram. Man, it's it's it's great if you like to see pictures of cool, cool bowls and videos. I mean, you still post some of those good old days where videos where you'll get a rut a rut, bull come through and bugle or something. So I always go to those. So every now and the end see one of those. But but man, I appreciate you coming on today and look forward to what you and your clients pull out of the woods as folk.
Ah, thanks sir here as well. Man, best of luck to you.
Yeah yeah, we'll catch everybody on the flip flop, all right.
Look