00:00:00 Speaker 1: All right, everyone, thanks for tuning in. You know you don't tune into podcasts. Thanks for downloading the Meat Eater podcast we're recording right now. Out of I was thinking, this whole area is Phoenix. You guys got it all subdivided. It's Phoenix, but it's it's Phoenix about scotts Stale, Greater Phoenix. Yeah, we're in the Greater Phoenix area, which is great in Scottsdale. I'm here with yo. Honestly, tell us who's often with us? And before anything happens, I wanna tell Yanna's plug your T shirt company. We've done so many podcasts. You never plug your T shirt company. Janice has a T shirt company. It's called a Hunt to Eat. Go buy. If everyone in this who listens to this goes and buys one of Yanni's T shirts. Who's a constant presence on the media podcast, Yanni will be He'll be rich. Maybe maybe give us just like ten days. Oh no, when this air is, it's gonna be. That's what I'm doing now. Perfect. He's been having printing problems, but don't think that he doesn't put out the high s quality T shirt possible. Hunt to Eat dot Com hunt eat dot com with a two though numerous. Oh. The website is t O to eat h U n T t O e A T. You go there. He's got different shirts they say hunt to eat on him. You buy one. They're not expensive, they're cool looking shirts. Yanni gets a bunch of money. Um, you get an awesome shirt that says hunt to eat on you get different states. You guys still have what you have? Colorado pretty slim right now it's Colorado. And then we have a generic Hunty. We've got a couple of coming down the pipe, so hopefully we'll have them out before hunting season. I don't know why I'm out selling Joannie on his own T shirt company, but he's just go there and get a hunt Eat T shirt. I can start talking about that all the time. There thing you ought to do before we get too fire into this is uh mediator podcast is in many ways, it's like it's the offspring in some way of a show. There's a TV show, Meat Eater. I'm in it. It's on Sportsman Channel and if you want to go just get it without having the monkey around with TV. You can go to meat Eater dot vh X dot TV and downloading stream Meat Eaters until your heart's content. I don't know we have. I don't know how many there's you know how many we've done sixty some episodes. There's six full volumes, six full volumes on there. And put in the offer code meat either podcast. You get five bucks off. Um, you get five bucks off in the volume. So then you put your hunt, eat Yanni Patel's T shirt and watch met your episodes. You're saving money, You're helping the planet. Um. We're joined by Dark Holburn and Jay Scott, two guides that I know who operate down here, and you get Colburn and Scott outfitters. If you were gonna go on a guided hunt, Um, you this is gonna sound like hyperbole. And I'm telling you, like I have a vested interest in Yanni's selling a bunch of T shirts because I hang out with them all the time. I have a vested interest in you downloading me Eatier episodes. Um. For for various reasons, I have no vested interest in saying that if you were gonna go on a hunt and you managed to get Jay and Scott to guide you, you're in the best possible shape because they don't do it for money. They just do because they like it. Well, we do it for money, you guys, they do, they do. But once you hear about how these guys operate, it's sort of like what they do, you'll realize that it goes way beyond that. And UM, give me what you guys consider yourselves. A spokesman for Colburn the Scott authors, we're gonna get into a lot of things that these guys are involved in. I'll do this before you get into you're you're involved, and I would say four primary pursuits. Google to turkeys in Mexico. M hm. Okay, Now, just to give a thing like turkeys in the US. All turkeys in the US are regarded as from a genetic standpoint, are regarded as one species. Okay, it's like the American wild turkey. But wild turkeys are divided up into Rio's, Rio Grand turkeys, Miriam's turkeys, Gould's turkeys, um Eastern turkeys, Osceola's the Ostiola's are in South Florida, and it's kind of the most that's the most dubious subspecies because there's no genetic barrier between Eastern turkeys and Osceola is just like a line. You just draw a line like basical where around Orlando or something. You just like draw a line across the state. And we all disagree that that it's Osceolas on one side of the line, Eastern is on the r side of the line. And there are some morphological differences like that they have some the feather, yeah, different color tones to them. When you get into the Goulds, Rio's and Miriams, you did have real genetic barriers separating these different populations out. The hardest one to get by far as a ghouls, and the best place to go to get a ghouls is in Mexico. And within that, the best place to go do it is down with the places that the jay hunts, so they do google turkeys in Mexico. KU's deer in Mexico and Cou's deer are kind of the only real valid subspecies of white tails. Then elk in a handful of select units here in Arizona, the numbers of which are unit nine, Unit ten, and unite. That's Jay Scott talking now. Jay, I'm just trying to do a quick wrap up, so let me keep yapping from that. I don't mean to like you're the gas and I'm doing talking about. I just want to lay the groundwork here so you get this thing where that you get these like these units. But it's not like giving up a secret because it takes forever to draw a unit and when we get around to speak to that for a minute about what it requires to be able to hunt one of those units. The fourth thing these guys are involved in is hunting desert big horns. That's correct, but only a little teeny bit, like only one or two clients every year, right, Yeah, Well, there's very few tags for desert bighorn sheep in the state. I want to say, there's probably only seventy five tags. That's a rough number, and it's very hard, very challenging to get the tag, and you know a lot of those people don't go guided, but if you do. Yeah, there are less than I counted it up, and I can't remember what I counted. There are less than a thousand big horn tags in the US. Sounds about right. Way mosty's big horn tags are given now is they're given out through a lottery drawing where interested parties, interested dudes send their money with an application and they do like a lottery, they pull names out of a hat and give those guys tags. But there's a couple other ways. There's there's two other ways big horn tags. There's two other primary ways. Like everything is just gets endlessly complicated, but there's two other primary ways of big horn tags given out. You give out a big horn tag through a raffle where you can buy as many tickets as you want for five or ten dollars a piece in whatever state you choose to participate in the raffle, and then that gives you multiple options and then they draw a name out of that and the odds on raffles can be dismal. Or they have a thing called a Governor's tag or auction tag where to raise money for big horn conservation. It's very expect like big horns are missing from a lot of their native range. Is very expensive to like get big horns and get them where you want to give them and make the habitat right and protect them and have enforcement and research. And one of the ways they pay for all this is they sell a tag. Every state, most western states will every years sell a big horn tag and that's called the Governor's tag or the arc and TEG. And you guys have done that we have. We actually three years in a row we guided the raffle hunter here in Arizona. And the interesting thing in Arizona the raffle tag. You can only hunt the nelson I sheep in Arizona. There's two types of big horn. There's the Mexicana and there's the nelson I. The nelson I primarily are located those are both regarded as deserts. Both deserts. There's no distinction in like Boone and Crockett are Pope and Young or any of the record books. There's no distinction between the two. But the nelson I primarily are in the north and west part of the state, kind of northwest by Kingman's basically the upper center. And um, the raffle hunter can hunt nelson I sheep. There's one little section down in a unit sixteen A that there are some mexicanas that that move back and forth. But for three years darn I both guided the raffle hunter, and um, how did you find the guy? Like just I just want to clear very real quicken. We say the raffle hunter the tag in Arizona that was given out to the guy that won, like the door prize type raffle thing. But how many those raffle takes do they sell? I don't know exactly how many they sold. I know that last year, when the third year we did it, we harvested the largest ram ever shot, not only on the raffle tag, but the largest Nelson I ever shot in the state of Arizona. Because of that, the following year, when the raffle tag sales, I think it raised a hundred and sixty hundred seventy thousand dollars, So it does almost as good as the governor's are well. And that was the thing. I think it brought thirty or thirty five thousand more. And I don't want to say it's because we shot a big ram, but I mean people too got You got people's attention. Yeah, so you got. So go back to that year. I guess we're in talk about big horns first, because it just came up. Go back to that. You're like, how that went down where a raffle guy, like, how did you How did the raffle guy come to hire you? And what did he hire you to do? Well? The first year was Donny Young from Mississippi, and he had actually called around and talked to several outfitters and talked to both Dar and I and emailed us and we sent him photos and such, and he kind of interviewed us and he chose us and we actually went out on that first year and shot. He got the largest ram shot on on the Raffle tag and UM. The second year we had UM Larry Spillers from Texas. He interviewed us the same thing, interviewed other outfitters and UM went out and he got a really nice ram. He had just chattered his ankle and I think it's his ankle and his foot and stuff. Didn't have screws softball and he actually made a great stock even though it killed him to get up there and shot a really nice ram I think the third largest ever shot. Well. Then the third year that we did the tag, Claude Warren from Maine, UM called us and hired us pretty much pretty quick. And he's a Raffle winner and he's from Saco, Maine and just a great guy and and he's the one that shot that really giant UM desert big horn and Nelson, I, what do you want want a guy like that? What do like like? What is the package you you bring to someone when he's won this thing. He's won this tag, the once in a lifetime tag. You're never gonna be able to do something like that. Again, what do you guys do to go like guide that trip? Like talk about sort of the time you spend and how your schedule plays out over those months, because that's the thing that's most interesting to me. Yeah, what's so cool about those tags? As they start um August fifteenth and go to August fourteenth of the following year. So it's a three sixty day tag. It was a normal big oar and tag. Like, there is no normal big oar and tags days here thirty days. So if you actually drew the tag. The month in December is the sheep season here in Arizona. But the raffle guy gets a year, he gets a year, and they usually find out in July. Um, I want to say mid July for the fall for the upcoming year. So he knew a month ahead of time that his hunt actually started on August. Well, the raffle uh starts on August fifteenth. Well obviously here in Arizona, you know, and over by Kingman and Lake Havasu in some of these places where the Nelson Are. You know, it's a d D eighteen hundred twenty degrees out. So what's that country look like? Oh, it's it's very beautiful country, but very rugged, um jagged cliffs, and and it's pretty desolate, very desolate. I mean a lot of times you go out there and you just you can't believe that a sheep even or an animal could live there. Um but just rock and sand, well not as much sand, but granite and rock, and I guess there is some sand, you know, real steep, um jagged peaks and um, just beautiful country but but inhospitable for sure. So you can't do it in August. That's the thing. I mean, you know, your hunt starts August five. Hunt. But what we try and typically tell those raffle hunters is about October is not only a great time to go out and see a lot of sheep and the Nelson I's typically are rutting really good from like, oh the whole month of October and the whole month of November they're still running really good. And so all three of those hunts we generally hunted from like the fifteenth of October to like November. That was kind of the window, the thirty day window when we wanted to get our hunts done, and that's the main thing, is prior to the general season starting. So since they drew a year long tag, that's great, but we also like to be able to hunt before the general season starts. So you know for a fact that you will not see another hunter. Well, you won't see another desert cheap hunter. You might see some guy hunt deer or whatever. Yea, really hardly ever see anybody ever, which makes it awesome because you know, the sheep are rutting and there's a lot of them. The units we hunt a lot of the fifteen units and and such, there's just a lot of rams. I mean, we would see sometimes a hundred sheep in a day and see you know what rams in a day maybe more um and they're running and there's nobody else out there. So it's just but I should point out that during much of this the hunter is not even out there. Well the raffle hunt. Let me back up. Usually Dar and I would go and scout for ten days to two weeks prior to the season and we would just go up there and we would just scout until the hunter showed up, and then we would go and hunt from there and we you guys camp out and just look at rams. Yeah, just evaluate and look at rams, video, photograph. Absolutely, it's awesome. They're running around. It's a great time. So you just like have a camp set up, get up in the morning, go watch wild Boy, wake up, watch you just keep it. Tell you what you saw. So how many rams during that during that pre hunt period, how many rams might you locate? I mean it, I would say you could look at fifties, sixty, seventy eight rams, um, depending on whether you know you're seeing ten anywhere from Let's say you make a big hike and maybe you go into country and there's not many sheep. Maybe you see seven or eight and you could see thirty. It just depends on really where you go. Um. And one thing we really try to do is photograph and video different rams. So we have a basically a catalog video cattory of all the rams characteristics, you know, the flaring ones, the ones that curl and tip up, um. So that when the hunter gets there, he can go that's the one I want to go after. What country was that one in? And that that's the one we really like do you feel that you find all the rams? Oh? Absolutely not, no way. I mean, so there's stuff you don't know, ye, even after all that, And I mean that that's half the fun of it is having where you don't know what's there and what's around the next the next you know, bend, and what's up over the next hill. I mean, the country's way too rugged to feel like you could have inventory of every ram. Now, there are certain units in Arizona where after a certain amount of time you can probably get a pretty good inventory of every ram that's in there. But the sheep moved too, so you could I mean you could be there for a week and go back a week later in some different rams of you know, moved into that area. Do you feel like there's big horns in there that no one's there? Could feasibly be a big horn in there that no one's ever looked at? I doubt it. I doubt it too, But I mean you take like fIF D where we actually um harvested h two out of three of the rams. Well, I guess fifteen D south Um the unit got split. But there's you know, I think they've surveyed five hundred and some sheep and the last survey we were there actually three years in a row for their surveys, and I want to say they surveyed the mean it's buy a helicopter anywhere between four hundred and fifty and I think the last year we're there it was close to five hundred and something sheep. So, I mean, you're looking at a lot of country, and you know, with the raffle tag you can hunt anywhere any of those units. So you could basically go from you know, the Bill Williams River at the bottom end of sixteen A and you could go all the way up through the Kaiabab and literally cover hundreds of miles of country if you wanted to. Um to back up a little bit, the first year we went out there and we actually set a camp darnay. Then we actually met a guy there in um Golden Valley, Fred Ashurst, whose darn eyes now dear friend, and he just basically got this awesome property with this house and he's got this garage and concrete floors, and he invited us, hey, just make base camp out of here. So actually the last two years we did the raffle hunt, we just stayed at Fred's, which made it great because he actually built a shower for us in a bathroom and I mean I think the burring our cots out and yeah, I mean we're there for you know, anywhere from twenty one to you know, thirty days straight and um just looking at cheap it's it's great without without get into I don't want to get too personally. I don't want to get too personal, not personally in like your personal life. But how in the world do you build for something like that. That's the thing. I mean, you if you break it down by per hour, what Dar and I charge. I mean we you know, we're doing it because we love it, and we're doing it because really that's an opportunity to hunt and really look out there and find what's the unknown, and basically it covers our expenses to be out there. But I remember, like, just to get a sense for how much these guys look around. Um, I remember conversation that I have with j I think when we're hunting goold turkeys of Mexico. I had. I was talking about how I've seen while hounting, I've run into three mountain lions. And I remember asking Jay if he sees many mountain lions and I think at the time, I think you said, right now I'm looking for number thirty two or something like that, and now it's looking for number thirty eight. Well, we saw two down in Mexico couster hunting. I actually just saw the one um darsa on both. But um, yeah, if you're really have a way to measure how much time someone spends. Um, if you're if you're like like trying to like quantify not just quantity, but quality of hours spent hunting in this kind of area, it would be like a good way to measure, like, well, how many mountain lions have you seen? Because it's like not only is it how much you're doing, about how good you're doing it, you know. Well, yeah, I mean I will say that probably of the lions that I've seen have been in Mexico maybe, And you know it, I've seen a bunch of them, most all of them with my binoculars. Um. You know, we're getting up on big purchase and looking over tons of country and doing it, you know, days on and looking for deer. Um. But you know, people think, you know, the lions would be hard to see. Most every lion I've seen, I mean as soon as you see it, it's just boom, that's a lot. And it's not like they're hiding. I mean you just see him playing this day there reminds me of something that that the writer. There's a really good Hunt writer. No one really knows about the guy, Duncan Gilchrist. Um, he's got a book Hunt High but that he doesn't mean Hunt Stone, he means Hunt the High Country. And he's just he's like this really like Duncan Gilchrist was sort of like an accidentally good writer. I think he accidentally almost wrote like Hemingway, like really sparse and kind of beautiful. But he was a timber cruiser by trade, but he was a big game guy too, and he um in one of his passages he was saying, like, all the time you spend he's a airs a lot, all the time you spend being like, oh is that a bear? You know, He's like, there's never been a time when I've seen a bear where I thought, oh was that a bear? And had to turn out to be a bear. It just is and you know it, you know, like a stump don't turn into a bear. It's like you're like, there's a bear and that's what it's like, I mean, I think dar would agree with lions. I mean you just see them in there they are. It's just like that's what it is. Man. There's you know interesting about Duncan. He was really big into big horns, filming them. You heard of this guy he died filming big horns. A friend of mine, it's more than an acquaintance. Mind. An outdoor writer named Darryl Gadbo was writing a thing it was with Duncan when Duncan had a heart attack and died. I remember Darryloo said, um, it was like he just left, like Duncan just left. And he looked at him and said, Duncan, where'd you go? Just like was this gone? Yeah? On the mountain films? What a way to go? Though? He was, he was big and he guys, you guys, if you haven't looked at the stuff, you shoul look at it because he's huge into that stuff. But when you're so, when you're out like surveying the ground for sheep, are you looking at stuffing? A lot of guys would maybe miss is it like is it hard to find sheep when you're up glass? And for him the country can be hard. I mean it can be pretty physical. Um, but I think with sheep one of the things Jay would probably agree. We don't spend all the time sitting in one spot looking. We cover a lot of country like glass for a little bit. If we don't see something, we're on in the next spot, So do not really like who's where? You know, you still moved, But you wouldn't sit all day looking. You know, at one hillside we look. If we don't see him, we're off. So you feel like you can rule out areas. Definitely one of the biggest pieces of advice I give people all the time on sheep is and and I'm notorious Daris too for having tin power. You know, saskis around her neck or whatever we're using, and you just pop up, you pan it real fast, and a lot of times you're going to see them right away. Those white butts of the sheep will stick out. And I think from acousta mentality, you know, you hike up to a high spot and you sit there and you work it over in glass meticulously all day. As a sheep hunter, I'm kind of the opposite. I go up to a high point, I cover it all, I move over a bit, I cover this area, I turn around, so I basically cover three sixty and maybe I'll do it twice. If I don't see him, boom, I'm going over hiking over to another high point and do the same thing. But because sheep are nomadic and because they move around very very much more than any other animal we hunt um moving. Because it's such big country, you have to move with your eyes and with your feet, and you know, rule out country. Move cover the backside, cover the front side, go to a whole new area. Because just like unlimited amounts of stuff to look, ms will be you know, here one day and you know, fifteen miles away two days later. The I always say, the worst place to look for a bigger m is the last place you saw. I'm not saying they won't always cycle back to that area at some point in time, but they just they just move here and there. They have their nomadic and they're not like they're not like a deer I would say, where they're hiding from you or laying down there. They're just cheep. They're just up moving around and like just said, if you see him, you see him. If you don't move, they're not hiding from you can't sit deer when they when a deer sees you acoust or they'll either hunker down or they'll take off running. Cheaper curious animals, and they do have that barrier like an antelope, where you know you can get four or five hundred yards from them. As long as you keep that distance, they're just gonna let you. You know, they feel comfortable with that range. Do you ever go out and find a big horn? You're like, Wow, that's a giant big horns. Some guy had love to kill that big horn and then you never find him again. Oh, I mean absolutely. As nomadic as they are, yeah, I mean they're very hard to keep track of. Depending on the country um and their habitat. You know, eventually you'll find them again if you look for long enough. I mean, so you got a guy, just to get back to how this how this whole thing plays out. You get a guy, you got a client, he's gonna come out and hunt. How many days is the guy gonna come out and hunt compared to how many days you guys are gonna be out there looking? So when he gets there, you know what to show them. It depends like on the raffle hunts or the general season hunts. You know, we put in usually a minimum of you know, a couple of weeks of scouting before they get there. On the raffle hunts, we always liked our thing is we like to be there like the fourteen days before they got there, so that we knew immediately what the sheep were doing. You know, scouting a month earlier, two months earlier, the sheep are going to be completely moved. So it's not like scouting you know a deer that's got a home range or an elk that has a home range. You know, like I said, if you spotted a big round, you're probably better opt to go to completely different side of the mountain. So we feel like right before the hunt is the most important time with sheep to be scouting. And then how many sheep might you find? Like you know what the guy wants like like like you know the way like at this level when someone wants to go on big horns. I'm talking to the audience as Jake. At this point, when someone's gonna go big horns, they got like a they get like a number in their head. You know you're gonna do this once, right, and they'll want a ram of certain size. So like what's a giant or you know, what's the bottoment, Like what would be like a big you know, like a big desert big horn that everyone would agree is a big, big one. But sometimes it's a look thing too, right, It's not always just a number. Well, and I can very unit by you know, I mean some units don't have what we say are big rams and they just never have. And but the raffle guy's not gonna go to that unit though, No, but big in the raffle units. It's you can't compare big in the Rathley unit versus some of the general units. Yeah, Like years ago, like I think it was two thousand five, my brother drew a big horn Rocky Mountain, big orange tag in Montana. Now the biggest you know, some of the biggest Rocky Mountain big orangs in the country come out of Unit six eighty on the Missouri River, Montana. He didn't draw one there. He drew one far away that you're just you're never gonna get one of those rams where he drew ram. So like when we showed it to the biologist down there, he's like, well, it's a big ram. No way, is that a big ram in Unit six eight. It's just like the ring here with like the nelson I. Typically the nelson I are not near as big as the Mexicans. The Mexicans are basically from that same line Bill Bill Williams River to the south, you've got western Arizona by Courtside and and Yuma and then um, you know, some of the biggest rams in the world desert desert cheaper right here out of Phoenix and Unit two and twenty four. Right along these lakes there's Soro Canyon and Apache Lake and some of the biggest, most giant Mexican rams ever be taken or come right out of here, just you know, forty five minutes from our house here. Um. But you can't really compare a Nelson I with the Mexicana. They're separately, you know, Like what you were saying. You would show what is a big nelson I to someone that hunts Mexicana, and they would it's they're just not as big. The Mexican rams um are just a bigger ram, bigger base, just bigger score wise, even bigger than the big ones you guys have gotten. Well, when Claude Warren shot is ram, it to give you an idea, growth scored a hundred and eighty five and three eights, which that's a giant even for Mexican UM. But it was the largest nelson I ever shot in the state of Arizona. So you know, that's a freak. It was a freak. Normally about a hundred and six hundred and seventy in nelson I is a really big ram that you've really done something like Dars hunter. This year we had a hunter in the general season UM and we hunted in the same unit where Claude shot hit ram and he actually got a really big ram, the biggest nelson I in the state of Arizona this year, and it was a hundred and seventy five and what four eight's gross And that was the biggest nelson I shot, which last year was and three eights even our ram this year, UM, Bob O'Connor's ram was a giant, but it was you know, it's ten inches smaller than Claud's. 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Yeah, we show him all the pictures in the video and and a lot of times, um, we'll be emailing them and sending them little snippets of video the whole time when he's at home when we're off scouting, and what's his take on this? Love it? You know, and they start naming round And I think that's one of the reasons that we've booked that hunt so much and people like us because A talk to the hunters before and they're saying, I got emails every day of all the rams and they just love it, you know, the documentation. It drives them crazy though, because they're back home and we're out there looking at cheap But why are they back home? Well, they could be out there, but when we set aside, like let's because he's not gonna have a month that he doesn't. Yeah, so who's got a month. We usually set aside two weeks for that hunt, and we say, look, if we don't find what you want UM in that time framed, and we can always come back out and keep hunting UM. But it kills him when we're out scouting and sending them pictures or rams and and uh, they're at home. So you tell the hunter he's still You tell him to come out for two weeks. We usually planned two weeks on that hunt. Yes, minimum, I mean by that point you know this, this is a two prompt question. At that point, you know the ram you're gonna look for when the gay gets out there? And in square miles how much? How do you know where that ram is? Well, what we try and do is see where the ram. A lot of times we'll watch him and he'll be here, and he'll be here, and he'll be here, and he'll be here, and we kind of connect the dots that this is the this is the mountain range or this, these are the certain peaks that we've seen the ram on um. You know clouds ram. You know, I I found Claude's ram, Fred and I found Claude's ram together, and I saw him that day, and I saw him the next morning. And then I was scouting ahead of time, ahead of the before I was even planning to come scout. You're scouting. Yeah, I was scouting for the scouting trip and we had him schedule to come out in November one to hunt from the first Well, I found this Ram and I brought him back, showed a video of Dar and everything, and we started looking and it just started eating on us that we need to get up there. So I turned around and went up there. Well, I looked for fourteen days and we couldn't find Ram. You're kid meat. So they're like, well they move around and there they cover a lot of country. Did you ever find him again? That's the one with shot That was the one the day he got killed fourteen days later. Was there for fourteen days on that one? Now the hunter showed up on um. I think it was his sixth or seventh day, um, because we actually bumped his days up. So you had seen it. You had seen the Ram, saw it again, video him the loss of for fourteen days. Couldn't find him for fourteen days? And how hard are you looking for it? It's hard? It's darn the only way that these two look at the sunk down as if we lost our wedding ring out on the side of the hill. I mean, like just to give you here, I hunted turkeys with these guys. And Jay likes to leave boat three am for if it is a very short if it's a very short drive on private property, Jay likes to leave about three am and get out in the woods. And we had camera with us, as we want to do, and we had to put tape over a little red light that's the size of a pinhead on the camera. And then Jay gets what best we described a sort of a low disposition against the tree and just sits there and doesn't even kind of move until daybreak. I think a lot of times you could say what we do as a little extreme. But I think the reason that darn I had the success we had is we try and cover all the bases, and we try and leave no stunt stone unturned, and we you know, the little things like the light. I mean, I don't want to ruin the morning hunt for you because he sees, you know, the little was just the controllable stuff. No, I totally understand. I'm not like hacking that I understand it respected. And it's like there's so many things you don't control, like where that ram is gonna wander too, Why not have it be that everything you can control you just address so that it's only going to be the noncontrollable and you never have to be like, oh I wish I had You can do that in your own way, like I should have gone in that drainage and not that drains like you can second guess. I'm always But it's not like I wish I hadn't been a dumbass, you know, or I wish I hadn't taken like a shortcut, or I wish I hadn't decided to sleep in a little bit late, and then have it be that you know, you're the cause of the problem, you know, Yeah, I think that's huge. I mean from an outfit our standpoint, you know, there's always someone that will outwork you, there's always someone that's better than you, there's always someone that can spot better and do whatever, and so our job is to just try and do the absolute best job that we can and be the most efficient and most effective that we can, and and you know, let the results be what they may it. But you you've got to get on every hunt period. But you guys have never gotten into um anything that like the buzz not a buzz word, but the people are was it scalable? Is it scalable? You've never gotten into anything that's scalable? What do you mean? Like? Okay, the guy becomes the out guide, right, and then one day he says, you know what I should do is I'll build a lodge and I'll hire ten guides and I'll have you know four you guys come through this every year and kill out and then we're making real money. But you guys do like boutique. Yeah, I mean that's a good word for it, is boutique because we've talked about it a lot. If you want to make money and earn a living, is an outfitter. It's a volume game. You gotta do a lot of volume. But when you do a lot of volume, you lose control over you know, the quality, and who's guiding. I mean, it's not me year, it's not Jay, it's somebody else. And it's hard to control that out there. Because I should point out that you honest to tell us who you're supposed to be. You're supposed to be out buying his Hunt to Eat t shirts right now? Y honest, who tell us who's a producer on UM Media the show? And who's always here on these podcasts? Worked never on the big Horn end of things, but worked the elk end of things with Jay and Dark Colburn Scott. Now I want to I want to talk about some of other stuff you guys do, but I want to finish up. Tell me about tell me the story of We're last year, you guys did the like the Governor's tag and and you the audience. Remember I was saying that there's like three basic ways the big Horn tags get distributed. Where you have the general lottery where you're paying application fee and send your application one application and you get picked or not. Then you have that um raffle where you can buy an unlimited number of raffle tickets at five or ten blocks apiece, and maybe it's you know, a percent of a percent chances of being winning, but you win the tag, or you just like got deep pockets and you buy the Governor's tag. So after doing after killing these like giant rams with these auction guys, the Governor guy comes to you on the raffle. You mean and then the governor. Yeah, after successfully three years, very successfully doing three raffle guys, you get sort of the you know, the crown jewel of the governor guy. So tell me how that plays out, you know. I think one quick question to just intererget actually answer it while you talk here is I do want to know is it the crown jewel for you when you did get that call? And um, if it's all right to say how much that tag went for? And so we know how well if he doesn't want to say, I'll just look it up my phone. Yeah, I know that that's actually the tag this year that the um the tag went for two hundred thousand UM the year last season when we guided the tag, it went for a hundred and eighty thousand. Now, the beauty of that is all of that money goes to our sheep in our state. It stays here and goes into you know, conservation and building water water for the sheep and transplanting and helicopter surveys, and it's earmarked. That money is earmarked specifically four sheep, which is great. Yeah, but it is and I support you know, I mean, it doesn't really matter what I think. But as far as the grand scheme of things goes. But like I support the thing. But the paradox and and everyone admiss this is we have like our country. The reason our country has such phenomenal hunting opportunities and such phenomenal wildlife despite of the fact of a huge population and technologic you know, technological advanced and all that, we have like wonderful wildlife, wonderful hunting because we have what's called the North American model of wildlife conversation conservation. And people often criticize that term like it just makes people fall asleep hearing someone say North American model of wildlife conservation. But what it means is wildlfe's help in public trust. The reason you do a lottery to get a big oarng tag is no one has any more right to the big horns is anyone else. And you are democratically allocating big orang tags the governor's tag. When it's criticized, it's criticized on on those grounds, meaning you're throwing out this idea of like democratic wildlife, of publicly owned wildlife and making it a commodity that goes to the highest bidder. But you gotta keep in mind too, sort of how many tags we're talking about, Like you might have a state that issues several hundred big horn tags. They do one for the governor's auction, and there's the issue of the fact that that money and they can pull some out for administrative purposes. But I think it's like in the ninety percentage points of that money goes on the ground. Okay, So you could hit and it happens every year in every state. People hit big horns with cars. Right, It's like one big horn isn't necessarily it's not like one big horn is of vital importance to the population of big horn. We're not talking about bigfoots here. We're talking about big horns, right, Like you can kill a big horn. It doesn't have any especially an old male, has no real difference on how many sheep are gonna be living in that state. Okay, So it's not like you're like giving this the guy some finite resource that he's now going to remove, and it's no more. You're killing a big horn, one of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of big horns that live around here, and it's a bunch of money. But I'm but I am sympathetic to the criticism of it. Like I understand where the criticism is coming from. If you paid me to like advocate on that behalf, I could make a pretty impassioned argument against governor's tags, But I could make a better one in favor of him as it's currently run. Because this kind of stuff is expensive. Man. They shot out big horns off most of their range in the US, shooting him for meat for whatever reason. And it's not like you don't just like wave a magic wand and get all those big horns put back where you want them. It takes tons of time, tons of resources. So as you guys get this guy, he calls up. He bought the big he got bought the Governor's tag for two. Oh he paid this year's tag paid two And how's that conversation go? You know, darn and I have talked long and hard about wanting to have the Governor's tag for desert big horn sheep, and you know, it's it's an honor to be able to guide that tag. And I always looked at it, as you know, because a lot of the scouting some of the biggest rams in Arizona right here forty five minutes, you know, from our house, and um, it was something that I've always wanted to do. And I would say I had just an incredible time. We had an incredible time scouting. I think we each had forty days individually into scouting, and um, you know, we we saw some incredible country, We found some incredible, beautiful rams, and you know, I think it was everything as a guide that I wanted to do. Um, it was just awesome to be out there basically photographing and videoing and filming these rams and nobody really was else around, and UM, it was awesome. We found You know, if you're familiar with the scoring system, I mean we found seven rams that we thought were between a hundred and eighty and a hundred and eighty four inches our target ram score wise for the hunter wanted a hundred and eighty five inch ram. And you can tell your you can tell me the difference between No, but what I can tell you is, um, there were no rams that we had found prior to the general season that we're definitively over. There was a seven of them, uh, two of which got killed. There were seven that we thought were between that hundred and eighty two hundred and eighty four inch range. Now the two got killed, did they prove you right or wrong? Um? I think both the two that got killed. I think Darren and I were both under We thought they were smaller. You guys are conservative, not the other way. I always like to be. Yeah. The worst thing that Darren I could ever in our mind is the over on the score, the thing that would crush me most as if I overestimate. And it's happened before on animals over the last twenty years or whatever doing this, but it's it's one of those things that I never want to be over ever. That's you know, that's part of credibility, and that's part of um. You know, darn I like to be credible and we like to make sure that if we tell somebody something that that's what it is. And you found so you found seven rams that were in this area. Of four, we didn't find any that were one what we thought. Two of those got killed by other hunters too on the general seas on the general season, because the general season starts December one and it usually runs the whole month of December. So just like in the raffles situation, we wanted to hunt and be done before the general season. This is a little bit different though, And our conversations before the general season with with the hunter um and his representative was we have not found what you want that we could say definitively we and and you know, of the seven, we probably could have went out with them and killed any one of the seven pretty much any at any time. Um Or put an effort in to find that ram, and okay, let's go get him. Um any you know, the hunter was like, well, what do you think? And we said, well, you've said from the beginning you want you know five or better. You know that in two thousand and twelve, um I helped the hunter that had killed a hundred and eighty six you know intr Ram and and the Raffle Ram. The year before Claud's round was five and three, and you know, we felt like there was probably a ram out there that was bigger. We didn't know of any but we had all year to look for that ram. Did other guys know of one? It? I mean, it's hard to say. I mean, obviously we're not privy to some of the scores and stuff that that other people and and we certainly don't ever want to say that we know every ram in the state at all. Well, and the other thing we talked about is there was only so many tags in that area where we were looking. They couldn't kill all those rams in the general hunt, even all the even if everyone killed one of the giants that would we still would have some rams that if we didn't find something else, we could potentially go hunt after this general hunt, and we could hunt through the general hunt. You know, his tag was ever bit as good as any one of the general season tags. He can hunt in basically any of the units. But then he would have you know, February, March, April, May, June, July, and half of August, which the desert big Horn in this area where the Mexicans are, they typically rut in June and July and the first part of August. So you know, we were going to be probably the first auction tag to ever hunt during the rut, and the first auction would be the first auction guy that actually waited that long, that actually waited that long. So from our perspective, why do they want so different than the other ones in the same him state. Yet some sheet that wrought October November and you get the sheet are rutting late summer. You know, it's like, why did the brown trout you know, feed in this time in the rain? You know, it's just it's just the way it is. Um. So we knew that we had a great opportunity if if, even if we didn't kill before the general season, that you know, we had tons of time to find, you know, a true giant. And if we didn't, you know, we we would have taken the chance and hunted the whole year and to try and find that monster of a lifetime. And if not, he were pretty confident that you know, he could shoot a you know, a ram around a hundred and eighty inches with you know, two weeks to go, three weeks to go in the season. So we're thinking we shouldn't settle now when we could settle at the end in Yeah, And I mean the hunter Will asked specifically, is like, what would you do? And I said, well, if I had your tag and I wanted to kill a ram over five, if we haven't found one, that's over, let's keep looking. We have all years. Did you ever started to worry that there wasn't one in existence in the state? Oh, I mean, I think it's not a worry, But I think that's what motivates you to go out every day, is to try and find it, because oh, absolutely, it's absolutely plausible that there's not over O. But my thing is with this tag, why not exhaust every possible resource and if there's not, you don't find one, you gave it a great shot, and within let's say the last thirty days of the hunt, you could probably go out and still kill the tremendous ram. Yeah, and you'd spend all that time in the field looking at yeah. I mean, the the amazing photographs and video that Darren I were able to capture was is awesome and we'll always have that. And we learned so much from it too. I mean there's parts of the unit that we learned now that you know that we didn't hadn't gone in that now we know really well and um, you know it. It's nobody would do us unless they loved it. You know, you gotta love it to want to be good at this and to do it. I mean, if you don't have a passion for it, you don't stand a chance. I mean, you can go out and shoot a ram, but you have to really and there's a handful of guys that really love it. There are from from This is something you never you'll never be able to answer because because you're honest, but you're tactful at least enough to survive. How could it not be that? Like, just hearing this for me, I'm just curious, how what goes on in your head with it? How can you not think after a while that it would be like, no, I killed that ramp, Like I'm the one that was out there. I covered all the ground, I went all the miles, I found the thing. I showed you where it is. And then one might say, one could argue, he just shows up and pulls the trigger. I mean, how does do what I mean Like, I'm not saying I'm not criticizing what he did. Like he's doing his own thing, and he's in the law, he's he's does right by you. Everybody's happy. But in your head do you wind up how do you how do you wind up feeling glad for him and not kind of like and not kind of like territorial about the family. Are you talking the specifically the auction text? And yeah, like I think anyone who's not out there, like if the guy said no, I'm gonna be right there with you, man, like, if you stop fast, you're gonna feel me bump into you, because I'm in this. I want to do this. I want to learn what you guys know, but to have be that you do all that and then a guy comes out and shoots the thing, I'm not. I'most not be as big of a guy as you guys are emotionally or psychologically, because I would want up being like, you know what, I'm not gonna show you where the sheep is, because if you really wanted to know you here, well, I would feel that way about it. I certainly think and dark and speak for himself, but I certainly do like taking hunters that want to go scouting and want to be there forever re experience. And let's face it, though, I mean, I can argue both sides of the auction tag. I can argue both sides very well. Um Our state relies on this money and quite frankly, the general Joe blow, as much as I love them, they're not going to show out of their pocket five bucks. They just it's just and and we need the money. And so I'm absolutely four auction tags, you know. Yeah, And to get get to your question. I think when we decide that we're gonna be Colburn and Scott Outfitters and we're gonna be guides and we're gonna do this, I think you have to take a level of professionalism in the field that says I've been hired to do a job, and my job is to sweat. My job is to get you know, struck by rattlesnakes. My job is to do whatever it takes, you know, have the boat breakdown, my you know, change flat tires like we did out on the sixty and and that's my job, and nobody hears about that stuff. My job is to find. Our job is to find the client the biggest ram possible and have them have the best hunt that they can possibly have. I think part of our goal on our general season hunts is we want to Yes, we want a great trophy, but more than anything, we want the great experience. We never want a hunter to leave thinking that they just came out, pulled the trigger and they were done. Most all the hunters that we ever hunt with, with all the different species, they text us, they email us, they call us, they invite us to their house. We're friends with them. And we build that bond in relationship. So I certainly don't want this whole conversation to be taken it. It's all around the trophy. To us, it's more about the experience. But yeah, I mean, is it feasible to think that you could go through all this work, you know, a hundred and ten degrees and you're out there hiking up and down peaks and you know, sleeping with the you know, the fleas biting near years all night, and you know all that stuff that we do. But that's also the job we chose. I think at some point that's your duty and you just do it. Yeah. I think the only thing that I can see how I would feel about it is that it facilitates you being able to do something that people would only dream of doing. I think the people here's what it is. I think people think they I think people think they wish they did what you guys did. They think, yeah, until they did, until they steve. What I was gonna say too, is most hunters, like Jay said, we're become lifelong friends with and then you get the person, you know, our sheep hunter from this December, he shoots an unbelievable ram he never once mentioned score prior to the hunt, and he gave me a hug as he was leaving with his family there and broke into tears and was just like, thank you for this unbelievable experience. It was, you know, more than I could have ever imagined. So, I mean, that's pretty special. You know, it's more than money at that point and the size of a ram. It's it's a bonding, you know, life experience you've just shared with this person. These there are guys out guides out there that all of us have run across that aren't nearly as professional as YouTube, and they're probably out of the realm of you know, the public eye. They do walk around boasting a little bit, how probably, and they take it into possession as in how much they've killed, talking about what their clients have killed. Well, I agree with you, but I and certainly I don't want to come across as someone that's saying that, darn, I don't have pride and don't have our own egos. We all want to kill the biggest challenge. I mean, we want to kill the biggest thing on the mountain, um because it's a once in a lifetime deal. But I think we have to always check our own egos and and and you know kind of humbly approached this because you know we're not perfect by buy any stretch of the imagination. You know, it's funny about what else saying you're about sort of like who did it? Like whose possession it is? Talk like when you talk with guys they have a lot of friends that hunt a lot, and like I know, you know we know guides, and you know many of my friends having guides. So when we talked about like when you honest tell me what he's always tell me what you guys are out to, because he's in touch at the all time. Johannest would never say, um, yeah, Ja and Dar's client did whatever. It would be Ja and dhar as like those somehow you guys are both like sharing you each got your finger on the trigger. It's like Jay and Dark killed blank you know what I mean. It's like it never like hearing it, no insults your clients hearing it, and never even enters into my head that it's something other. I just like here and I'm like that they did this thing, you know, and granted like for sure you have like someone there and you're doing your job. But like in my from like when I hear it, that's just like, honestly what I hear, I don't picture you got as like joint doing it. But his picture is so like. But that's the thing. We get to go the whole experience and do it all. We just don't get to take it home. I mean we get to go on a sheep hunt every year, which is amazing. Do you guys go years without hunting personally? Oh? Personally yeah, yeah, a long long time. Yeah. And I think speaking to that, you know, when darn I started, even before we started guiding a lot, I mean we've always kind of guided, but um, darn I hunted together for all sorts of animals and um, you know, I think one of the things that our own tags together. I think one of the things that made us very effective is we always acted as a team. And there's numerous trophies that that um Dar shot um that you know, I'm as happy about him shooting that trophy as if I am. And people say, oh, that's not true, but dude, I can I can beg you man, Like when I hunted, like the handful of times I hunting dollar sheep as al as building my brothers, and it's like it doesn't you you don't talk about it. Is that we you know, you guy smell with the mountain saying like we got a ramp. Yeah, and that's the same thing. That's the same. What do you guys get like, oh, we got a ramp. And that's the same thing with guiding. So we've taken that same mentality into guiding. And you know, with with the coustre hunting and the mule there and the elk and turkeys and whatever, we just darn I operate. We we know how each other, we know how we act, we know how when one person you knows may get frustrated, we know how, we know how to read each other, and we work almost as one um. And people that hunt with us, they say that they're like, you guys are unbelievable because he knows what you're thinking. You know what he's thinking. And I think that's we've become pretty effective that way. And I think we took that into the guiding and we're able to produce, you know, very well because we worked as one team and and um, you guys meet in the first place, it wasn't like a fly fishing shop fly shop. So he was I think in n I believe maybe nine four so twenty years ago. I actually had a doctor friend that owned the fly shop and I remember walking in and there was this kid up on this ladder and he was stocking. Actually were moving the fly shop to a new fly shop, and I came in and he'll tell you his impressions. But um, a little later that day he was like, so you hunt And I said yeah, And he says, do you bow hunt? And I said yeah. And I think ever since those words were uttered, we've been lifelong friends. Oh yeah. And then the owners of the flashop left for the summer, so left he and I in charge, which I can actually remember one time on a Saturday morning getting a I don't even know if we had cell phones back then, but to make a long story short, any anyway, I called into dark because I'm like an hour late, and he's like, where are you. I'm like, all being I think I had overslept or something, but he was my boss. So after all that, how are we do? How much time we've been? Yeah before, we're at an hour? Right now the good time to take just a quick break, take a quick break, be right back. So after you guys met, like you guys meet at a fly shop, how did it go when you started bowl hunting together? Should be like your guide in Desert big horn hunts well in it was two thousand one, but at this point needed you have guided hunting? No, I had a guide fly since I think in Night. I think Night was the first year that I had a guide's license. After you guys met, correct after yes? Yeah, yeah, Jay started guiding some hunts um late nineties for what Elk right, Elk and Cou's deer um down in Mexico kind of started that. It was that just because you've been hunting on your own and liked it and had a knack for it. Yeah, I think, to be honest with you, I was just trying to get more time out there hunting UM in Arizona. You know with our draw it's you know, limited tags and living here and not having you know a lot of resources early on to to go hunt. I thought being a guide was perfect because I could go tag along and you know, actually go experience all these hunts. Because Dar was actually raised in a hunting family since he was little. I shot my first year when I was fifteen, but that was the first real hunt that I had ever been on. So I was one of those kids that grew up. My grandma got me Field and Stream and Outdoor Life magazine. But I absolutely wanted to hunt as a little kid worse than anything. But is usually those people don't turn into real good hunters, And it's usually the people that have you have to do with your whole life, you know. Yeah, And I mean some would argue whether I'm a good hunter or not. I guess that the thing is is I wanted to hunt and fish so bad as a little kid. I think even today people ask me why I love it so much, is because when I was little, I really didn't have the opportunity. I was the kid that literally when Field and Stream came, you know, like six seven, eight years old, would read it cover to cover and literally have like the pages flipped to the things that I liked. And you know, so once I got introduced to it, um, I was hooked. That's all I wanted to do is hunting fish. You know. Jabs up the interesting point where like, how if you want to hunt in Arizona, you you, oftense just have to go with someone who's gonna take if you notice when you see pictures from Arizona, there's always seven eight guys in the picture because you got your guys you hang out with and you're hoping that one of the guys draws the tag. If you want to go every year, you gotta go with your buddies. Yeah, Like if you live in Montana, it's like if you're a Montana resident, absolutely anale tag every year. Absolutely elk tag every year. Absolutely a buck mulier or white tail tag every year. There's many dolle tags you want to get. Absolutely a bear tag every year. You can hunt more months than you can't hunt here. I mean it's just a different place. It's just like it's just not as productive of a landscape. You just can't. You know, there's there's not over to counter hunting here so much. We do have lots of opportunity here if you're you know what, do archery and just do different things. There is a lot of opportunities. But you're not walking around because you walt it's fat with all the tables to figure out somewhere, all the tags. So yeah, you fall in with someone and and you know I mentioned that like in this this the hunting guy, but we haven't coming out. I mentioned there's a lot of things that if you want to go hunt them, Like I said, like, if you want to go on a on a big orang hunt. Started hanging out with guys that are interested in big horns because the chances if you ever actually drawn a tag, you know, it's not gonna happen, but if you fall in with the right crowd, you might go on a handful him. I've been on a couple of big horn ons. I've never drawn a big Orang tag. I just had the experience of going. It's very incredible. It's a blass man, and you know, I still sit here feeling like I gotta remind myself that I didn't shoot the thing, you know what I mean, cause it just felt like like being there. That's exactly how I ended up here working with you is because I found out you had a doll Sheep tag and I've volunteered my time just so I could fly in the airplane into doll Sheep Country join you. And I think, damn you two up like email like yeah, you were like, yeah, Steve's got a tag, you should talk to him. He was in, I was in. I was in Fairbanks. Yeah, and so just by going, you know, I by wanting to go and see sheep country and see a sheep hunt and and experience a sheep hunt. Here we are, I've been. Yeah, I had to take for something called the Tope Management Area. Now you guys have never hunted doll sheep, right, No, you do want to remember one of you was complaining about that you're a little bit afraid of cold weather. It was I think it was wet where in Arizona was wet. I wouldn't say that. Anytime the weather gets under sixty degrees, I grabbed for a sweater. So I mean, I'm definitely a desert rat. But um, yeah, I would love to go doll sheep hunting stone sheep hunting. Um alright, So definitely not saying I'm the toughest critter out there. Well no, you gotta be though now from doing all the sheep scouting. Um. All right, So you guys, we're gonna flashop you'd like to hunt or you'd like to hunt a lot? And just got him to guide and start out doing elk and who's you're down in Mexico. I love videos. I want to say that last um, was my twenty year, would have been my twentieth year of taking the entire month of September off to video elk. And it started out videoing elk and guiding elk hunters and just my my love for elk and bugling and all of the parts of the game of elk hunting, from calling to you know, all of the different facets of elk hunting. I was just enamored with it. Yeah, Jay even judges h elk calling contest three years. I was a judge for the Rocky Mountain Calling contest, but I didn't judge this last year actually because it was during sheep season. They bumped their um expo up into December, which was right at the beginning of the general desert bighorn cheap season. So doing doing the elk deal, how did that lead into like how like kind of like give like a quick crash course and how dude becomes a sheep gun um. To be real honest with you, we hunted all sorts of stuff. In two thousand nine, my friend Glenn Hall, Darnay's mutual friend, Glenn Hall, who we just think the world of, actually drew a desert big horn sheep hunt. I had never been on a sheep hunt until then, and so he drew the tag and his son Tyler and I, Uh, basically we wanted to know everything there was to know about sheep hunting. So I talked to every single person that would listen to me, that would take a phone call. Um. Tyler and I both scouted a lot for Glenn's hunt, and from the first time, just as it was my friend and I wanted to be there for the whole thing, I took the whole time off. And you know that was I wanted a good guy. No, I hope I draw an Arizona sheeta and so I just first. Um, so from the first round that I ever saw, and I was just hooked the yellow horn, just the country they live in. I was just hooked on it. And so I mean we became almost obsessive of you guys have a good hunt. That year the two nine, Glenn shot what at the time was the number three muzzleloader ram uh in the Long Hunter book, UND seventy six and four eights net, which was a barge ram for that unit. And um, we looked at a ton of rams. But I mean, at from that point, from that season, UM just absolutely hooked on sheep hunting. And that was over in western Arizona, and we had already been guiding, you know, for cou's deer and elk and all the other stuff. And um, we learned so much about that unit. Um, how many days did you put in when when your friends us to take how I mean, I would say we put in twenty one days at least, maybe maybe more. Um, but videoing and photographing them and just documenting them. I just fell in love with it. And as fortune would have at the neck next year, actually, um, a guy from Wisconsin, Ron Order for drew the same unit. Well when he called me, he had found out that that um we we I was in there the year before he had the same hunt. And I said, look, you know, I might not have the experience on judging rams and what have you, but I know the unit, and I know some of the rams that are in there, and we got a great one last year. And and I think Darney's expertise in glassing for cous dear just I mean, when you're trained to hunt cous dear and and and and glass for coustar sheep is in desert sheep is nothing compared to coust, So I felt like we fell right into the sheep game. Um, we took Ron out, actually guided Ron in two thousand and ten. He put his faith in trust in darn I. We did it together, and he got a beautiful ram that that we had nicknamed the Lolo Ram that we had actually found in the year before. And um, we spent I think we scouted. Um it was either every Wednesday or every Tuesday for like two and a half months, um steady every morning that day we would drive two hours from here. But then before the hunt, we spent a bunch of time and Ron killed the logo ram and that was two thousand and ten. And then, um, I just was in love with it even more. And dar Than was all in, you know, and he was loving it too. And two thousand eleven, Eric Swanson's ram he got an ice one. And then you know, then two thousand eleven we took our first raffle. So we kind of went from zero to a hundred real quick. Um. But I think Darnay's analytical nature and and it seems like everything that we get into I just want to know everything there is to know about it and be competent at it. So I think the way we went from being Elk guides and cous dear guides to being Sheep guides was just loving the game and wanting to be in the game and know everything you know you could about the sport. Do you guys think you'll keep doing going after sheet? Definitely? It's fun. I Mean there's one thing about sheep that I would say is different than deer and Elk. There's a lot of interaction with them when we're taking pictures in video. A lot of times it's close. I mean you're can be fifty yards from them sometimes, so some phenomenal video. Yeah, the pictures and video, it's really enjoyable documenting all that stuff, So that aspect of it is different than Elk and Deer. Do you guys put in for tags? Oh? Yeah? How many bonus points do you have now? I think I have like eighteen? Do they give any tags? Um? Just just to I feel we've talked about this so many times, just to like bring people at the speed on what I'm talking. What I talk about the bonus point is in when it comes to limited draw permit allocation, which happens when let's say you have you know, a hundred deer, and five dudes want to hunt deer. You gotta be like fair about it, and not everybody gets to go, And so everybody starts supplying, and they reward loyal customers. Thinking of a person who applies for a tags as a customer. They reward loyal customers by every year that they apply without success, they are given a bonus point or a preference point, And basically these are like rewards points which enhance your chances in the subsequent years to draw a tag. Some states handle bonus points in different ways where some states, and this is true for everything from bears to big horns, right, but even turkeys. There's bonus points for turkeys in some states. So some states will give a certain number of the tags to whoever has the maximum number of points in that given year. Some states just you to point as a point in your name goes in once for each point you have. So if you have four bonus points, your name goes into the hat four times. Montana squares your bonus points. So I have right now twelve bighorn sheep bonus points in Montana, or thirteen, my name will be going into the hat one hundred and sixty nine times this year. I will not draw a big horn tag this year. Um and and until that state does the thing where you give a certain number of tags of the max point holder, I'll probably never draw. Always a chance. Um, yeah, I have a chance up into almost a percent. I think I have about a one percent chance um with thirteen bonus points. Anyways, you have eighteen and twenty bonus points. Are you in a situation where they're going to for sure give you a tag when you get a max don't? Don't they don't do that max holder thing. We're so far behind. I think I think five is max. Um. I could be around it might be six, But twenty five I think is max. And there are there are more MAX guys every year than there are permits available to meet all the max guys. The max guys still in a drawing. They're not just automatic. I think rough numbers. I was going to say there was like a hundred and fifty people with MAX for sheep, and they give well hundred fifty residents I believe with MAX for sheep, and let's say they give a hundred sheep tags in Arizona go to the people with the most bonus points, So twenty tags right off the top go to those max point holders. So I mean Jay and I are behind that, so far behind that, Well, I think I don't know. The things you need to look at when you don't have max points in Arizona is you need to apply for units that don't go in the max point draw. So so you need to pick some of the lesser tier units that might not have as bigger rams but might have a sleeper round. And that's what I'll I can try, and I always try and apply for units that there's still a chance if I draw of getting a really nice ram, but they aren't gonna the tags aren't gonna go on the max point because the way Arizona does it is they give the text to the people with the most points, but they don't give of each hunt. They just let those they pick those tags out of the pool. So those people with the max points are picking the best units. So the best units aren't available by the time it comes to the general jow because they only might have one or two tags and they're gone in that So if you're applying for those units, you're wasting your you will not draw. But a good story last year I took a girl on the general season, Avery Elms, cutest little thing you've ever seen, twelve years old from Oregon, Baker City, Oregon. She brought her dad and grandpa down. Um. She started hunting on the nineteenth once she got out of school. But she only had two bones us points. And it happened to me in the and it's a nonresident. As a nonresident, but she drew in that unit where where I hunted in two thousand nine and two thousand and ten, where the Glen Hall's big ram was and um, the logo ran and subsequently the one of the seven giants that shouldn't say giants, but one of the seven big rounds that we found uh scouting for the auction tag was in that unit and it actually got killed and I think it was a hundred and eighty three inches um. And she drew a two bonus points. So don't ever think that as a nonresident you can't draw, because she drew with two points and she got a beautiful ram, and um was a pleasure to hunt with. So you'll do more. You'll do more than one chap hunt. You did. You were involved in several sheep points. Well, Dar had a client in fifteen D North and and I had Avery Elms and forty four B North and then we also had the the auction hunter. Um, so technically I guess we had three homes. You guys split up, No, no, yeah, rarely, but but we do. So Jaane Darr didn't kill it. I found the big one and I called Jake because his hunter wasn't coming. I didn't. He said, my bags are cacked on headed. All I had to do was just say I found a big one, and I was scrambling for my stuff to to get up there to just help him out anyway I could. So now I meant to talk about it. What I wanted to talk about all the things you guys got, but we burned up tons of time on big horns. But to put in term of points, the ELK units you apply, the ELK units you hunting are arguably the best ELK units in the country because Arizona is widely regarded. As you know, it makes like the if you're gonna if you ask anybody who's really into elk to name like the top two or three elk states, Arizona's eyes on the list and the best units in the best state. How many years have the guys you guys had been applying for the tags that you got. It's a great question. You know, our draw just came out. The actual draw hasn't been released, but they've hit the credit cards. So the guys that have applied on a credit card, UH, they know they've got a ding on their cards, so they know that it hit for whatever the amount is the non resident feeding h like Friday four or five days ago or three days ago. UM. So I have a guy, Bob Reid from Bend, Oregon, UH, sixty eight years old. He has seventeen bonus points he put in for Unit nine archery. So he's been faithfully applying for an Arizona LT for seventeen years and going and apparently hasn't come out because he wouldn't have his bonus points if you'd come out right and and going into the draw. You can look at the numbers and see how it went last year. And we were pretty confident that with seventeen points he was going to get the Unit at nine archery tag. So he applied for Unit nine one choice and he did get a ding on his credit card, so we know we're going to outcome is the right seventeen points seventeen points when you're in those units, like how good is good? Like how many bulls you like to call? Like you call up but Darry, you don't like to call it too much. You more just like to get out in front of just see if something happens. So when you're calling, like in one of these primo units, if you're like, how many bulls might you see? You know, when they're really writing and really going, you know, you can get out of the truck and make a little walk, and you know, when it's really hot, you can hear twelve or fifteen bulls buglean when it's really good. Um, you know, and in a given day, whether you're just trying to glass them or if you're actually trying to work those bulls and get in on them. I mean, I would say on a good day you could see in a morning, I mean you could probably see a dozen bowls easy. Um, if you were just glassing, just trying to spot elk and not really move in on him. When it's good, you could see I mean you could see probably fifteen or twenty bulls, no problem, would you agree? Dar? I mean, what's that? What's that? That. What's that YouTube video? How would people find that YouTube video? That bull comes up with screams in your face and you try to scare it off. Oh yeah, it's um uh Tracy. Yeah, it's encountered with crazy. I I was in Unite with Chad Converse and Richard Sprague in two thousand and ten and this bull was bugling and I kind of we snuck up and they got out in front of me, and I cow called and you could tell he was just coming, and then he kind of comes and then he kind of turns and looks in their direction, and I kind of called to him, and he just came like on a string, and he ends up coming around trying to catch my wind, and he circles me around over here, so you'll see I kind of turned the camera and he comes and I'm just sitting like, you know, kind of on my knees, and he comes up bugles into the camera and I thought that's cool. And then he takes like five or six more steps and he's literally as close or maybe closer. I can't believe you didn't try to spook him before that. You know, I've been very very close to elk Um before and It's just one of those things that worried he's gonna all of a sudden just get scared, and all would take is him just we always we always laughed at you know, whatever you do, keep the camera running. If that happens. Um, it's probably not the smartest thing. I don't condone. But I love, I mean like it all the safety. I love being close to him, and and you know, sometimes literally you can, if you play your cards right, you can literally probably reach out and touch them as they walk by. But you gotta tell me your heart hadn't been raising them. Oh yeah, I was. It was I was on full alert. I'm thinking he's got me if he wants me, for sure. Video Jay's face is pale when you turn a camera back on you a little a little cam quarter thing and you're talking about the same video on talking about where you want to and like you shoot, shoot whoa whobo whoa yeah, wobo yeah, and he kind of just look he hesitates and he looks at me, and I'm going whobo And he never really spits. No, he doesn't know it's on YouTube. You can it's on our YouTube. Yeah, he doesn't spook. He's so and like I know that in that you like, if you're gonna go there, you've been putting him seventeen years all that, Like you're gonna go and you're gonna try to kill a giant. You know why not? I would? Um, but that bowls like it like like a normal like a public land hunter in Colorado, DA. Yeah, And I think that's the thing the beauty of Arizona is. You know, it's such good hunting and a lot of guys have waited for so long you hate for it to be over with quick. We you know, we book fourteen day hunts. We do the whole archery hunt, you know, one on one. That's that's you know, I'm taking this guy in Unit nine. He's my only hunter. I'm as committed to the hunt as he is. And um, we don't you know, we don't split the hunt up. We feel like, you know, we want the hunter to be as committed as we are to the hunt. So you guys, clients will sometimes have you are here, like when you're looking at guided hunts as always like two to one, I mean, like two clients one guy. But you guys, some kinds do the other way around. Well, most of the close to the time for ELP. Dar and I each have a client, but you know there's certain times when we maybe not. We might each have an archery client, but we don't have a muzzleloader an early rifle. And most every situation like that, if I don't have a client, I stay and helped oar with his client. If he doesn't have a client, he stays and helps me. Yeah. Or if we shoot line bull on narratory hunt and the other guy's got two guys helping. Yeah, And it always seems like there's somebody else from your community that's like glass. And so if you don't like to call, what do you like? How do you do it? Like? What's your philosophy? I just like to get in front of them. And it's not that I don't call, because I do. Jay's got me calling some but um my, I'm not as good of callers Jay. If I if I was, I certainly would call more, but I'm not, so I have to use you know, stalking to get in on them. Um. I just like my theory is that if I can get in front of them and they don't know him, there, you know, I'm not calling to him, so they're not looking at me in front of them, meaning when they're traveling to when they're traveling or when they're out feeding. You know, I'm trying to stay parallel to them and then just keep getting closer, hooking in front of them, and they're going to pass by, like on an archery hunt. I think one of the biggest challenges with them, what Dar's talking about, is the elk, no matter what, are always walking into the wind. So when Dar says get in front of him, he never actually gets in front of him because they were parallel in but and then at the least closer. Yeah, And so that's the trick that I mean, definitely hunting in the Southwest a lot of times will chase out in line after these bulls and line out after these bulls, and we'll go for a mile a mile and a half before we even just decide to hook in. I mean we'll be patient, be patient, be patient and cooking, and you might hook in and you might be thirty seconds later, twenty yards late where there. So yeah, and then you got to loop around and do it again. And the challenge too is um you know, usually the cows are in the lead and the bulls always in the back. And the cows are so wary and such. You've got to cook in enough that the cows don't win you, but getting close enough where you have a shot at that bowl when he comes by. So I mean it's truly Dar's phenomenal at it um, but it's truly something you kind of have to learn how to do. And you know, if you get in front of him, you win them. You've now spooked them and they take off and now you've got to find a new group of elk the chase. But you also gotta if you don't push the envelope, you'll never get it cracking. It's a fine line because if you if you stay too far back and behind him, you'll just never catch up. You know, in my own years, like like I bowl hunted for out heavily for almost a decade um where you kind of like my brother and I had a place we hunted, We knew it well. He still hunted. He does much better now than he did when he was with me. Um, But we would all we talked about that line all the time. Without we're on one hand, you can just sit and plot, you know, like at five o'clock, you know, like the sun gets there. They always come over. It takes about blank time and then the whole herds over. Then you can kind of come in behind him and get down the ridge and you know, and you watch that whole thing for a day and then like you go to make a move the next day, but the winds that right, you know, but you're only hunting the three day weekend, and you're always sort of like at some point you just gotta get there in risk doing it. And then you get in there and spook and you're like, man, should have waited. Yeah, you know, it just seems like such a situation, you know, like like you're just running. It's a fine line, definitely is a fine line. And every now then you get lucky where you've been paralleling for so long and instead of you hooking, yeah, you get yeah, yeah, you get dealt that nice wild card and all of a sudden they're just decided to hook in front of you, or another bull bugles and there the bull you know, the cow's keep going and the bull stops and rakes a tree and boom, you're right there. So I was watching, uh, I was watching the episode of of the show Western Hunter, and um, it was that shows different hosts, but it was Matt Simmons was on there, yes, and um sorry, and he was like he got of like summed up his ELK cunning strategy and like such simple terms, but having done some ELK conning, it makes total sense. He basically like, I like to get close away for something to happen. Yeah, And that sounds kind of like flip it. But then you're kind of like, I know exactly what you're talking about. You kind of get in there and it's like it's dynamic, like things are changing, you know, and now and then like I remember one time didn't work out. Remember one time like doing that and all of a sudden realize that the bowl I've been sneaking up, I just got totally engrossed and thrashing a tree, you know, And I could have driven a quad runner up on him at that point, you know, because it's just like something happened, Like he's super were he bedded down, there's no where you're gonna get anywhere near him, And all of a a sudden he stands out and you're like that dude is just oblivious because you're shredded that tree. And then you know there is like something happened. You know, Yeah, you gotta just shadow him, and I hope they make a mistake. I mean, that's what you're doing well. And I think our terrain too, is a lot different than other states. Um, you know, we can travel with the help a lot better down here. We're not running through the you know, broken down blue spruce, you know, um blowdowns and stuff. You know, you guys got that nice you guys offer that nice bed of pine needles too, and and then it's flat and so we can really run with these elk and it's just a lot of fun. If you haven't experienced Arizona, you know, it's something that you've got to apply for. And and you know, there are units that you can draw with five or six seven points as a non resident, that you can have bigleen bowls. And maybe they're not the giant you know, three three sixty plus type bowls, but a lot of you know, three hundred three twenty bulls, which most people are just tickled pink with. And there's a chance at a three fifty bowl and every unit in the state, so it's always a chance. I have some number of points, but I'm still kind of just saving them up. You know how many points do you have fruit? I can tell you by looking it up. I can't, I mean four or five? I think so I'll be calling you guys in twenty years like alright, man, were yeah, all right, well I'm gonna we're have you guys are gonna have we have to sit down again because we can talk about the things I'm actually most interested in. It is hunting googled's turkeys and hunting Cou's dear. So I guess this is we would think of this. J and R. Tell over your website, Jay Scott Outdoors dot com, Colburn and Scott Outfitters dot com the same website, two websites. They're different that they were just like the same, just two ways getting our guiding. Our guiding website is the Colburn and Scott Outfitters dot com. And then um, all of our other adventures fishing, all the hunting, all the gear stuff, what have you with Jay Scott Outdoors dot com. And then you can go on and look up encounter with Ale one crazy crazy I so check that out. It's good stuff. Alright, guys, we're gonna do it again and talk about more stuff. But thanks for listening, everybody, um, best of luck, make sure to get in here. It's too late now, but the two thousand what sixteen applications Deer and Deer and Sheep is coming up in Gene, So get your deer and sheep applications in. It's your deer and sheep applications, and in twenty years you might be on the phone with Jane Scott. Jane