Music. Hunting expo what's it called hunting what's the one there's multiple expos this is like the one right this is the super bowl of expos yeah the western hunting and conservation expo in salt lake city if there's one thing that i i kind of miss about living in in the lower 48 well actually there's a couple things but one of the things it was being able to go to expos there was an outdoor expo in sacramento i'd go to and it was just fun to kind of walk around there was a fly fishing section.
And at that point I pretty much stayed out of the hunting area, but just love the fishing and the fly fishing section. And it was just a lot of fun to meet people and just kind of be around it. I never stuck around. I don't know if they even had like dinners and if they had auctions and raffles and stuff like that, but it was, it was pretty sweet. So today's first day of it. Yesterday was the first day. So today is kind of the busy day.
My whole thought was I have a bunch of these internet friends that I've known, like technically known, but I've never shaken their hand. And they all seem to congregate at this one. So I was like, nice, let's go like actually meet humans face to face. So it's been kind of cool to get ahold of people that I've known of or known and talked to for a long time, but I've never actually hung out with. So are you concerned about that first interaction?
Because you, what if you go for like the handshake and then into the bro hug? Or if you commit to a two-handed hug right off the bat, you know, that's, that's going to be aggressive. Well, now you've got me worried about it. I've committed to the handshake every time. Oh, that's good. Now I've got, I've planted the seeds. So, you know, some people really want two hugs, two handed hugs. So if you just like go in and just go for it, I think that's, that's great.
And a little kiss on the cheek as I go by. Oh, yeah. Go European on it. Yeah.
That's going to be on the back of your head today. Yeah, it is. it is you've ruined me thank you so are there like a lot of other people there like commoners that are just walking around and then you have people who are in the like in the thing would a commoner like me be would it be cool like is that a commoner like me going there to find a place to hunt or is it mostly just like a networking thing for people in the industry oh it's mostly
members of the public as you call them commoners that are wandering around most of the people that are my friends are the ones running the booths right and they're like the ones that are helping put on the thing and giving people a reason to be there.
So yeah it's cool there's a lot of new gear and some exclusive like show discounts and some exclusive show products or pre-release products that are available so that brings in you know just the average consumer to come check things out and there's also a bunch of good raffles and fundraisers for the mule deer foundation and sportsmen for fish and wildlife i think is the other one that's involved in it so there's good money being raised for conservation efforts in utah too so that's a good
effort that is kind of like i don't even want to say it's a side product It's like a main feature of the whole thing. Yeah, that's the, and I kind of want to talk to you about that because you're in Salt Lake city, you live in Wyoming, but because you talk about tags and with the Alaska draw coming out pretty soon, a lot of people in Alaska who are going to get, they're going to get frustrated because they don't draw anything and some non-residents going to draw.
And so they start talking about point systems and why Alaska should go to a point system.
And there's definitely I think mostly cons about that there might be some pros but I want to maybe let's start at the commoner level and then maybe work up to the benefits of the raffles and then the monetary benefit because they're along with the we want don't want non-residents here I should be able to have preferential treatment because I'm a resident there's also this idea that the raffles are just for the rich people and it's just going to make hunting some unaffordable.
Thing so let's start at the basic level the general public level you're coming up here to do an over-the-counter deer hunt with me i had to get i think it was a one point draw in wyoming to be able to hunt in wyoming so how many states in the west can have or have the same sort of like over-the-counter opportunities as you have in like alaska where you can just show up and buy the tag like you're going to do if it's a blacktail state there are over-the-counter tags like
if it's not a blacktail you're chasing then it's pretty much limited for non-residents in some way shape or form like i'm trying to think of any example where you can just go over the counter and find a mule deer i can't think of any right now because nebraska just changed their system to like a cap system the over-the-counter in idaho is a limited first come first serve system and it It goes out like in two seconds,
same with Arizona and yeah, basically it, you know, for the deer species anyways, if you're looking at mule deer and blacktail deer, there's really not any just pure over the counter for mule deer, but there's a lot of over the counter in the lower 48 for blacktail. Were there other mule deer availabilities before? Because I thought I remember watching some of those hunting shows where there were tags available.
They might not have been premium tags, but there were over-the-counter tags still available in maybe like a Montana or a Wyoming or something like that 5, 10, 15 years ago. Yeah, a lot of these changes, and I think this is kind of concurrent with probably what a lot of people are feeling in, residents are feeling in Alaska. But a lot of these changes have occurred in the last 5 to 10 years. Oregon got rid of their over-the-counter archery tag like four or five seasons ago.
Nebraska did this cap recently. Idaho started doing their first-come, first-serve queue system in the last four years. So these changes have been pretty recent. And I think one of the most interesting things that you're seeing is whenever these changes happen, that there's a lot of unintended consequences. And like originally, for instance, in Idaho, the first-come, first-serve change was like, oh, this is great.
Like people will just get in line you'll have a chance at your tag if you don't get that tag like maybe you can get one of these others but now it's turned into an absolute gong show where there's 60 70 000 people sitting on their computer trying to get a tag and once they get through the queue there's none left and that's it's it's pretty pretty wild in 2018 i went hunting in idaho with my dad who was running a ranch there at the time and i was able to buy my tag
right up until the hunt and now it's like impossible to get one right now so yeah a lot has changed in the last five to ten years and i think that is just a con like the changes across the west are kind of a constant right now that people are often to contend with yeah i i know that's a tag time when i look at my instagram feed and everybody's story is something about waiting in line they're number 60,000, whatever in the, in the Idaho, this or that.
And I think, man, that's so nice that we just, you can either buy the stuff over or you just wait for the one day when the, when the tag draws come out, you don't have to do anything crazy up here. Yeah. There's literally guys who will go to, go to Idaho, like from an out of state place, they will travel to Idaho so they can be at a life, a physical license counter because usually they get a better opportunity to get one of the tags.
So like people are, yeah, like you said, it's becoming a big effort to get tags down here. So I guess that's, that's a good, good starter with the, uh, with the point system. Then I actually know there's kind of an in-between point that's unique to Alaska and that's the federal subsistence board. That's another limiting factor. So if you're coming to Alaska,
it's you either get over the counter and it's no big deal. You just pay the money or you put in for the draw and that's going to draw on February 21st Friday and But some issues come with areas that you used to be able to hunt over the counter that you can't anymore because the Federal Subsistence Board, and this goes back to the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in 1972, I think, where Alaska was divided up into 12 regional corporations, tribal corporations,
and then a NILCA in 1980 that finalized and prioritized the people that lived in that area.
So the federal subsistence board meets and can make decisions about game so even if there's recommendations from the state biologists that say hey the everyone's that the herd's fine it's it's no big deal you can have hunts the federal subsistence board can close down hunts and we've seen that in the kotzebue area that was a pretty popular place for people to go hunt caribou over the counter do the fly out fly into kotzebue fly out and that got shut down even though.
Non-hunters only accounted for eight to nine percent of the total take and resident hunters or hunters in that area were able to shoot cows and calves so it was just this wild sort of hey what's going on here like why are you why are you closing this down and the population was like right on the it was super healthy but based on a very particular line of delineation from healthy growing to you know might not be growing it was just under that and rather than just
take that we can't hunt cows and calves anymore it was just get rid of the non-hunters and so there was some of that sentiment and for the non-resident non-resident yeah yeah yeah and non-fairly qualified too so even i couldn't go there if i was in the rural alaska if i lived in rural alaska i wouldn't be able to travel up there to to hunt either because it can be unit specific too so if you live in that unit then you can hunt it real subsistence
if you're not a resident of that unit you can't and then of course if you're big city fairbanks or anchorage then you then you can't so it's it closed down like 60 million acres to non-locals for for moose and uh caribou which was wild. That is a huge move. Yeah. I think a lot of us in the lower 48 can't even comprehend how big of a space that is to just be shut out of.
Well, I think I equated it in the section, the area that was closed, this is in the Kotzebue area, the northern, northwest portion of Alaska. And it was the size of roughly the size of Wyoming that was shut down. So imagine being like that huge of a swath of land. A, it gives you an idea of how big Alaska is because that was just like the upper quadrant of Alaska. That's a huge area to close down to non-locals.
And so there's that conflict is, and it's another layer. So some people are wondering why that's closed down. And that was closed down, not by the state of Alaska, that was closed down by the Federal Subsistence Board. I think one of the biggest things that you kind of hit on it there that is happening across the West, really just across the U.S.
When it comes to wildlife management is people are kind of turning their head to like turning their backs on some of the science-based information about our hunting impact and it's super super frustrating especially when you're talking about population levels and then you talk about people who are only taking males out of a species and it doesn't matter if it's elk or deer or pronghorn or any of the ungulate species that we hunt, unless you're at a very, very low level of, of males in a species,
all of the females are getting bred and they're able to reproduce and grow populations. So for the vast majority of our hunters who are taking bulls or bucks or whatever the case is, like you're just not having a population level impact. And it seems like that, that is leaving that rationale has left the conversation in a lot of places and i think i you kind of see that in alaska too.
Yeah. And most Alaskans and most people would say that if you are going to endure those winters, and if you're going to live there year round, you should have an element of priority. Like that's, there's no one is debating that, that if you're going to live in the Kotzebue area, that you should absolutely have a say priority. We should make sure that you're able to get the meat that you need because steak is, you know, 20 bucks a pound and gas is $15 a pound or $15 a pound?
Doesn't even make sense. $15 a gallon. But then there's the actions sometimes make people paint entire swaths of people with that same idea. And so there's some people blaming garbage on non-residents or people that show up and just fly out and put any money in the local economy. And if the guides aren't local, this area is not benefiting whatsoever from these people who are coming out from the out of state.
So then you have this, well, I'm going to keep it for myself then, because I feel like my, I'm being threatened by it. And even in Southeast here, Ketchikan was declared rural a week ago or something. I texted you about that. So that means that I could go to Prince of Wales and now I don't have to wait until the 16th to hunt essentially the road system. So I'm maybe excited, potentially excited, but people in Prince of Wales are like, wait, all of a sudden now this is our way of life.
We can get four deer starting on the 24th of July. And now there might be a whole bunch of people from Ketchikan taking the ferry over. And now the roads are going to be packed and there might be a lot more people, a lot more competition. And if I'm trying to use these tags as opportunities to feed or fill the freezer, then there's going to be a lot more competition. So then we start to have more dividing. Well, I'm okay with hunting, but I want to keep this hunting to myself.
And that's unfortunate.
I think you brought up a really good point when it comes to Alaska and like, having the meat like inaccessibility to really good protein that at decent prices probably and not probably it does make it a lot more efficient to be hunting than it does when you're living in you know it's like something we classically talk about if you live in salt lake city and you have to travel six hours to go do a deer hunt and then you get 60 pounds of meat from the deer hunt that took you $300
in gas and, you know, all of the things. It's not a net positive on your freezer and meat budget. But when you're talking about Alaska, you know, if you can drive 10, 15, 20 minutes outside your house and go shoot a blacktail or four and then get home and process it all, like sure, that makes a big difference. Or a moose, for example, in the northern parts. So I do see how there's a lot of sensitivities that are unique to Alaska.
And that is, where you know if from from a guy like me coming from the lower 48 it's not exactly apples to apples so i think there's definitely some considerations to think about there like that system where you have the rural subsistence aspect is like probably unique to alaska and it probably should be that way in a lot of ways yeah it is fine to talk about that too i would like to say as hunters that you know this is what we've always done if you go back
a thousand years, all of us were in some sort of, well, unless we were, I guess there were some areas that had kings and queens and whatnot, but like we had to subsist. It was a matter of getting food. So it's in our, it's in our blood for sure in our DNA, but the travel part, not so much. Like we weren't going, like you said, over the top to travel to this other area to ignore what was in our area. But now that's just kind of the necessity of it in order to have these experiences
and being exposed to the experiences. And if we can, then we might as well. There's nothing wrong with that. And there's nothing wrong with talking about it. And it's to bring out that point isn't to begrudge anybody who does any sort of travel hunting or is in the business of it. Like you can talk about it. It's fine. It's not a diss.
But I think along with that comes, okay, let's check the attitude a little bit because a lot of the conflict between resident and non-resident comes from the attitude that a lot of non-residents bring into the area. And you're kind of an ambassador of your state. You know, we, we see them getting off the airplane with their Sitka and Kuyu stuff in Ketchikan. We're like, oh, we know what they're for, uh, here for. And sometimes they're polite and they're looking around, they're taking pictures.
And other times they're just like the snottiest, most entitled people that you've ever met. And it's like, you know, they're up here for business. They are going to come up here. They're going to extract their resources and they're going home.
And so I try to like, when I'm down in Wyoming or somewhere else, they put some money in the economy, buy some things and just be a. A good representation of the out-of-state hunter because it makes a big difference, especially to not only to resident hunters, but also to non-hunters in that area. Yeah. You know, and you even see that interstate and then within it, I guess it'd be intrastate and lower 48.
Like where I grew up in Oregon was like rural East Oregon. We had, you know, 20,000 people in the county that I grew up in. And we absolutely despised when Portlander hunters would come to our side of the state, right? If you saw a non-resident, we were pumped. We're like, oh, heck yeah, this guy's out of Washington or Idaho or whatever, you know, Nevada. But then you saw someone with like, you know, Portlander type vibes.
You were just like, ah, screw this. You stay on your other side of the state.
And I think that you see that too. You're just like, people are finding ways to be pretty tribal about their hunting, which I guess go going back to your point we always have been so let's move up a little bit to the point thing now so if i i'm not going to draw anything i i typically don't but if i do it will be this year probably because just with the baby it'll be a lot more difficult to try to make something happen but everybody has for the most part
the same opportunity to draw so if there's a mountain goat tag that i want here in southeast alaska i have the same amount of opportunity as someone who's out of state. There's no preference. There's no 80-20 split, 50-50 or anything like that. And there's no points. So it's just straight up every year.
Very similar odds because you have similar amount of people putting in for these tags, which then if you end up not drawing for 13 years in a row, you start to think it's my turn to be able to draw. I wish we would have gone to a point system. So what would you warn Alaskans about when it comes to adopting a point system. Short term, it might be great. What does this look like long term?
The really interesting thing about point systems right now is that you look at the states across the West that have long-term preference point systems, and all of them, like literally all of them, are trying to find ways out of it because it has been such a disaster. So in 2028, Colorado is kind of like the epicenter of a big mature preference point system. And in 2028, they're going to actually remove half of the tags from the preference point pool and put them into a random type system.
Because there are people who have so many points and they're never going to get to the top that they still want to encourage people to stay in the system and be part of it. But they're never getting through the top. You see that in Wyoming right now, too. There's legislation that made it through one side of the legislative body. It was either the House or the Senate. I'm trying to remember which. But it made it through one side. Now it's got to go through the other side.
But the whole purpose of this bill in Wyoming is to create a random aspect to the moose and sheep draws. Because in Wyoming, the average age of people who are drawing moose and sheep are 59 and 64 years old.
And which if you're 59 or 64 years old and you're in great shape right now like you're probably like hey that's not a bad deal but you have to extrapolate that for you know 10 years down the road and you're getting 69 and 74 year old hunters that are out there chasing moose and sheep, if anyone you know i'm talking to alaskans here those are not hunts built for people who can't get around in the mountains like and as much as it would be nice for everyone to get an opportunity like the
way that the the point systems mature and we can go into some more specific examples if you like but the way that they mature is you get more people applying than there are tags and as a result like you're not going through each point level the only time it really works is if you have a low demand area. And you have, you know, a high amount of tags per the amount of people that are applying, and then you can kind of have some churn, right?
But the vast majority of the problems that people gripe about are when you have low drawing odds in a randomized system, and therefore those low drawing odds in a randomized system are the prime candidates to be the epicenter of really bad point creep. So right now in like Wyoming, if you have maximum preference points for deer, well, this is definitely happening at sheep and moose for both residents and non-residents, you'll have maximum preference point holders.
So everyone's been in the system for, I think it's 27 years or 29 years at this point.
And there are so many people still in that system that you do not have a hundred percent draw at that level you're just for the last 30 years you've been in this pool of people who have still a random chance but it's like everyone who has that same point level doesn't ever churn out so you have five tags and 100 people with the maximum preference points you still have five percent every year of drawing and like you're just sitting there waiting for maybe other people to start dying
i guess like to get your chance and it is kind of like kind of laugh at that because it's morbid and weird, but also it is the truth. Like there is, they said it was like a 17% churn rate of people who are literally just like either passing away or giving up on the system every year. But the incoming number of people is way higher than that churn rate. Yeah, you have hunters who are buying points in multiple different states. Abby stopped buying points, I think.
And I missed this year. I forgot to stink and buy my points in Wyoming. So I feel like I just totally missed out. I think I have five elk points, four mule deer points, and five antelope points or something like that.
But even that one year can be the difference between drawing something and not and quality of tag if that spot that i drew abby and i drew with one actually no she was resident at that point so uh where i drew with one point is that still an area that you can get with uh with one point or is it crept up to two because of sheer volume of people what is that so it's interesting like that place where she shot the high country buck that's crept up it's like two or three points at this point in
the game where you shot your deer it has basically stayed the same but it's because there's so much private land and there's enough tags that you turn through the people who are wanting to do it every year so it's one of those unique examples where like yeah maybe the preference point system works there but it's kind of funny i said i'm sitting on six or seven colorado points and i never intended to get here when i got into the game there was a unit that i was really excited about that was just
on the border of Wyoming. And it was 87% draw with one point. And I was like, awesome. I'll get, you know, I'll have to wait one year and then I'll be able to get it. So I did that, hopped in, and then it kind of crept up. It was like 19% of the people drew with one point that next year. And I was like, dang it, well, I'll get it next year.
The following year, they cut tags. They just had some management changes that they wanted to make in that unit and and here i am i've got seven points i haven't caught it yet it was a big kick to the knockers to be like holy crap like this one this one hunt nothing has changed about the season dates or the area or like the the necessarily like my expectations about that area it's not gotten significantly better but because they cut tags and then they have such high demand for it.
Here I am seven years later still waiting to draw and I think I'm still one year behind it. Are there any states that you know of that if someone draws and can't use it, it goes back in the pool or they can give it to someone or like what typically happens? Because up here, if you draw it, don't use it, it doesn't go to anybody else or you can't tell the state to, hey, I can't do it or I can't defer it. I think they may have deferred some 2020 stuff.
But are there any states that have that ability to defer it or to put it back in the pool if you can't use it? It's a mixed bag in Wyoming or in the lower 48. Like Wyoming, there's no turn back tag system that really gets you anywhere. Like people can't pick up those tags who are just average members of the public. But in Colorado, Nevada, and I'm trying to think there's one more Utah, those places reissue tags if you can't go on the hunt.
So for instance, and like, I'm not going to, maybe we can go down this rabbit hole too. My big, big horn sheep, you tag, I drew a couple of years ago, conflicted with a tag i drew in in utah and so i was like look i'm gonna hunt a bighorn you instead of going to mule mule deer hunt utah and i turned that tag back in got my points back in that state but also somebody else was able to go on that hunt i also wildly and this is kind of you know where i get to.
Be excited about a randomized system the drawing odds for that you hunt were seven percent i don't have really a chance in heck of getting a bighorn sheep ram tag down here so i kind of think like that that u tag i had was was my shot and because it was a randomized system i was able to to snag a tag you know and beat the odds on that one year so i'm a big fan of the randomized system just being like i'm i'm not you know my dad didn't start putting me in in all
these states when i I was 12 years old and like, think about like, some crazy long term strategy. And I'm actually pretty grateful for it now because I'm not sitting on a gazillion points and thinking that I'm going to get something special. Yeah. Yeah. We've been thinking about it with, with Haley, whether or not we should start buying points, not in many estates. We just thought maybe, maybe just Wyoming, just start adding some, some points there.
So by the time she was old enough to hunt, she'd have some points, but we decided it's probably just better to prioritize what we have here rather than do too much of the travel stuff. It's fun to do that. I love elements of the Wyoming hunt when you wake up and it's so stinking cold, but at least you're going to see the blue sky and at least you're not going to be wet.
Yeah you get there's a chance of warming up your face is going to be toast but you're going to be warm and that's so nice whereas here if it's if you're wet you're just never getting warm you just that it's a damp kind of warm but just it just sucks it out of you so it's nice to to have that so having those experiences is pretty fun i think the the one caveat and i think like i'm just trying to be really i don't want to be so anti point system that people think i'm just incredibly biased because
i do think that it works for the mid and lower tier stuff but that's usually not what causes the problems in a randomized system but to your point buying three or four points four five points for hayley would get her a great hunt at the end of high school or something like that you know and just allow you to go but that's because those systems already exist and you have to play the game to to get that opportunity mm-hmm,
Up next, I don't know if there's another level, but once you get past the point stuff, the stuff that's in your control, then it becomes a money issue and you can draw, you can win raffles. A little pitch here for the backcountry hunters and anglers of Alaska. They're entering, there's a 2025 Alaska governor's tag. It's a Copper River bison hunt package. You get the retail value is like $1,454.
Dollars tickets are 20 bucks for one 50 for three there's also a chugach brown bear hunt package and that's package value over three thousand dollars oh sorry the tag the the copper river bison package is valued over thirty eight hundred dollars the chugach brown bear hunt package is valued over three thousand dollars tickets are twenty dollars for one and you can go to.
Backcountryhuntersandanglers.org and check on the alaska stuff and you can get those tags there that's the little sponsor plug right there also i'm going to attach a couple little dealies that have qr codes so you can go right there to to do that so raffles where you out on raffles. Pros and cons so odds but it's good for money yeah it's one of the things i just had to look up because the the deer price in wyoming for a resident is
so inconsequential i was like what even is it? $42 for a deer tag. I take, I've spent a lot of time doing raffles for what Wyoming has is a commissioner's tag. And usually we'll sell in the past, you know, I've been part of raffles where we sold tickets from $50 a ticket to $300 a ticket. And then you have varying odds based on, based on how many they issue.
The cool thing is, is like, You're giving out, you know, in the case of Wyoming Wildlife Federation and like similar with your BHA example, let's just say you're going to generate $50,000 for conservation off of one animal, one potential animal being taken on the landscape. That's significantly better for the resource as far as like funding good conservation work than it is to issue that one tag at $42 to a resident.
Now, I don't want all of the tags to go that way because you should, I think, still be fostering a really strong kind of base level heritage and tradition. And like, you can't have wildlife management without having enough people to participate in it.
But when the rubber meets the road, those things make a lot of good money for important efforts to keep animals on the landscape that I don't think can be replaced by just putting all that shoulders on all of that weight on the shoulders of your average hunter. Yeah, I think that's the, that's the divider. And I probably should have done that as the transition there. There's the hunters are buying the tags are doing that.
And so the money that the state gets from that is helpful for conservation help for helpful for wildlife projects. But once you get to the raffle and the auction, it ends up being, it seems a lot more like ridiculous chance, too much money. And I think a lot of people assume that the people who are putting on the raffle
or the auction, they're getting most of the money. And some of these organizations are really good at putting most of the money or just writing checks and it goes directly into that state's.
The fish and the wildlife or a fish and game fund so that's a substantial amount like you said if you're paying 45 bucks or whatever for the license that's neat or you know 150 for the tag that's great but if you can get 10 000 2015 20 whatever and then on those auctions getting millions in some cases for certain tags that's a lot that's a much more meaty contribution to to wildlife of conservation.
And I think people need to kind of see that a little bit and rather than just, wild sheep foundation is making all this money. And so that organization is really, really wealthy because they're taking all the money when the vast majority, depending on the state goes into that state's fund. Yeah, absolutely. It's one of those things where, so in Wyoming, I've, I've had the, the, I would say fortune.
I really like guiding governor's tag hunters because as a guide, I get to go out into some of the most incredible experiences to look for a governor's tag quality animal, right? Like you're, these guys want the biggest of the big cause they're paying big money for it. However, in the last two years of guiding for two governor's tags, guys, we've shot one deer out of $120,000 that's been generated for deer conservation.
And it's just one of those trade-offs that like, yes, you should keep, you know, we don't want the a North American system being just for the people who can afford that type of money. Like, definitely don't want to go down that road too far. But at some level, there is like a good give and take to be like, these people want to and can offer up a lot more of their resources, their financial resources towards the wildlife species.
And we should give them avenues to do that so that, you know, we can basically redistribute some of like, this is sounding really political now.
And I don't, I didn't mean to go down this route, but redistribute some of that, like, wealth disparity right like the people who are working on an oil rig aren't going to be dropping 60 grand on a tag or even two grand on like a general deer tag in wyoming and it's nice that the people who can probably the guy who owns the oil rig can right can make that contribution.
Yeah and i think looking at it from the perspective of all the extra money that goes into it that could go into habitat improvement which then improves the stock and so maybe there's more tags available. And so it filters down in a different way that you can't really see. That takes some trust, but because the organizations are, it's a lot more, you know, solid, I guess, Elon Musk would find if there's any waste in there.
But yeah, it's, it's, it's unfortunate that even saying certain words, and I was talking with Katie Hill about this.
Sometimes if you, you say the right word for the context, but that word has become so loaded that all of a sudden someone hears it and thinks that's totally something else so because you said the word redistribute that means that you want to you're a socialist he's a socialist hunter like dude no that's just the right word for this context here yeah i think katie and i were talking about within the context of.
Like diversity of hunters you want to be inclusive of people and you know all of a sudden oh yeah i like no just have everybody be able to and let's let's get everybody into hunting so we have more allies. And yeah, anyway, that was a little side tangent there. Well, I appreciate you saying that because that's, that is exactly where my brain went. And I was like, oh boy, I'm like, they're going to call me a Bernie Sanders guy now.
And I'm like, that's definitely not where I'm at. But yeah, that's just, like you said, that's the right context or right word for the context of the situation.
So as a governor's tag guide, there has to be like, you're not like an official governor's tag person for wyoming or whatever like that but someone if they happen to get the tag they can reach out to certain guides for this is there like just a an insurmountable amount of pressure for that because they paid that that much money or how did they handle not being able to necessarily get the the trophy that would kind of validate that sort of purchase it's there feels like there is
pressure to deliver on those hunts right you have to like we're dialed like we're not going to be sleeping in or making any mistakes. And we're going to be sending, you know, photos and videos of like what we're finding and showing that we're out here grinding. But one of the really cool things is if you're at that level where you're buying tags and you're looking for that top end, oftentimes they've done enough of those hunts to know that they're looking for a needle in the haystack.
And they're not actually that concerned with killing something, which was the opposite of what I would have expected going into it. I thought it was like, we spent so much money, we have to get one. And the guys I've been around who were in this governor's tag type.
Sphere have the opposite opinion actually this one dude last year man he's got this giant ranch in texas and he was showing me these these mondo mondo whitetails that he's got on his place and i was like so do you shoot those he's like no i just like looking at them i was like i mean a lot of those guys really like they're at a point in their in their financial like wealth situation that the money doesn't matter for them as much as having
the experience to go and the chance at something really unique and big. And that was, that was, you're going to find bad actors, right? Like there's, you are going to find bad actors in that kind of sphere, but you find bad actors at the bottom levels too. So yeah, you just talked to enough of them. Sure. You're going to find some, some crummy guys, but at the same time, it was, it was shocking to me to run into that with, with those governor's tag holders.
Yeah, I have some buddies up here who guide obviously for fish and they've been telling their buddies down South that they're going to be getting, you know, 50 pounder, 60 pounder. And so when they come up here, because they've been bragging so much about the opportunity, sometimes they have, you know, they catch a nice 25 pounder or something like that, but it's not big enough. And so my buddies just sense that they're disappointed in a 25 pound king salmon.
It's beautiful weather. They're seeing humpback whales. They're seeing eagles. They're seeing just unbelievably majestic stuff that people pay a ton of money just to see without fishing. And yet they're disappointed because their expectations are too high or because they told everybody that they're going to come back with a 50 pounder and it's going to go on the wall of the office. And so it just makes them insufferable.
Yeah. But a lot of people like, I just want to fish. It's going to be great. A king salmon is great. And they have a different mindset. And even though they're wealthy. And I think it's an unfair criticism of people who happen to be wealthy is that they are by definition, someone who is super high maintenance and super demanding and wants only the best and feels that they can pay for things. And that's not true in all cases. It does happen.
But like you said, the, some of the most entitled people that I know are some of the people who like they have the means, you know, but they're, they're just super picky and bratty.
And yeah you know um when i think about guiding guys like someone who has a whole bunch of money and can like afford to buy a governor's tag or whatever i would, I would, I would hedge my bet to hunt with them and have a good experience than I would to hunt with somebody who has spent 20 years in an application system and just drew a max point tag because the person who has put the time in expects way more than the person who like kind of paid for the front of the line.
It's incredible. It is like if someone, if I hear of somebody who's like my worst client I ever had was 82 years old. He had maximum preference points in Wyoming. He wanted a Mui Grande elk and wouldn't settle for less, but he also couldn't hike anywhere. And he was a really terrible, like he was terrible to get behind the gun and on the elk. He like couldn't see very well, couldn't get steady. And it was just one of those situations where I was like, oh my goodness, man.
Like just because you've been in the system this long doesn't mean that you're owed anything. Like you still have to hunt. You still have to play the game once you get out there.
And now you know like i said i've i've had the fortune of being in the best units in wyoming been in a couple really good ones in nevada i grew up in one of the big three elk units in oregon, and it definitely was just constantly the case people who spend a ton of time waiting to get the tag roll out thinking that there's going to be animals behind every tree and that there's going to be huge ones and it's just not the case like mother nature has only so
many funds that you can pull from the bank and you know most of the time people are trying to withdraw more than than is in the account yeah yeah they if you finally draw then there's the pressure because you know that's going to be it this is the one chance and all the culminating or the layering of pressure i guess that's that would be really tough i'd probably be the same thing this is the one chance i'm going to get i'm going to be upset but yeah and i was really fortunate i
had a tag in nevada that takes i mean it's like two percent drawing odds after 25 years of applying kind of a deal and i had a company pay for a landowner tag for me so it was like a very unique situation i would have never been able to afford this and i went on the hunt with that exact pressure being like this is like one of the best tag blah blah blah and it.
Was legitimately one of the hardest hunts for for mule deer that i've i've been on especially with the expectations i had and it was just like holy crap that was a wake-up call like i would much rather if i do get one of these once in a lifetime or really coveted experiences i'm gonna go into that hunt being like this just bought me this many days to spend in this area looking for animals and if i find the one i'm looking for great but otherwise i'm just
gonna soak up every ounce of being able to be out here with a weapon at this moment in time because that's really all that's guaranteed when you get attack. For sure. We're getting up on an hour here. I know you got to get to the expo and do the thing. What, how would you like to close this? Do you want to pitch some stuff? Do you want to talk about the expos or anything that we didn't cover? How do you want to guide the ending of this?
I think, you know, just because we spend so much time talking about the point systems, I think folks should really, one, do the math and look at where other states have ended up before really getting on the bandwagon of a point system of any kind. And be open to the fact that there's a lot of places that have done this and it's not worked. So just be willing to open your mind to the fact that it's not a perfect solution.
And then on top of that be willing to think about what you actually are wanting when you're going to the mountains like most of the time folks who are wanting these hard to draw tags are just frustrated they can't get to this place etc and you know i basically have just restructured every fall for myself so that i can go with people in these places that i can't draw because i want to go there and have that experience but i'm okay if somebody else pulls the trigger
i think that there's a there's a beauty in being able to just say you experience these things and it doesn't have to be for you that's that's kind of a an enjoyable and kind of freeing way to think about these hunts that are hard to get nice good closer where can people find follow all that stuff or even if they happen to buy a governor's tag i don't know if that is in my my listenership if that type of person who's balling on that level listens to this podcast but if they do and they buy a tag,
where could they go to spend it with you? Well, maybe they'll end up with one of these lower 48 raffle tags of some kind, a commissioner's tag or something. Yeah. If you'd like to get a hold of me and talk tags, talk point stuff, like I'm happy to have these discussions and just kind of point out places it's worked and where it's not, or just talked about your hunting plans for the fall. That's probably best through my Hunt West account, which is my consulting service for DIY hunters.
That's at huntswest. It's plural on Instagram. Otherwise, huntwest.net is a good place to go kind of check out whatever my services are. But otherwise, man, I just like chopping it up with people and like talking about these things. So find me on social media and then we'll get in touch. Awesome. Thanks, man. Appreciate it and the fun of the show.