Make Western Hunting Easy

In this episode of the Nine Finger Chronicles podcast, host Dan Johnson and guest Brian Krebs discuss various aspects of hunting, particularly focusing on shed hunting, the importance of a hunting calendar for managing application deadlines, and strategies for navigating the complexities of Western hunting. They delve into the economics of hunting, the impact of non-resident hunters, and the challenges faced by state wildlife management agencies in balancing supply and demand. The conversation highlights personal experiences, insights into hunting strategies, and the evolving landscape of hunting regulations. In this conversation, Dan Johnson and Brian Krebs discuss various hunting strategies, the importance of preference points, and the impact of new hunters on success rates. They explore how technology, particularly Go Hunt, can aid in hunting research and planning. The discussion also emphasizes the value of local insights and communication with game biologists and landowners to enhance hunting success.

Takeaways:

• Shed hunting can be a seasonal obsession for many hunters.
• A downloadable hunting calendar can help manage application deadlines effectively.
• Understanding the application strategies for Western hunting is crucial for success.
• States are moving towards draw systems to manage hunting pressure and wildlife populations.
• The economics of hunting significantly impact wildlife management and conservation efforts.
• Non-resident hunters contribute a substantial portion of state wildlife funding.
• The hunting experience can vary greatly depending on state regulations and application systems.
• Point creep can complicate the process of applying for hunting tags.
• COVID-19 led to a surge in interest in hunting, but many new hunters may not return.
• The value of wildlife is tied to the economic contributions of hunters. Hunting more frequently in smaller units leads to better success rates.
• Preference points are crucial for planning long-term hunting strategies.
• Success rates have fluctuated due to an influx of new hunters.
• Utilizing technology can streamline the hunting research process.
• Local insights from residents can provide valuable information for hunters.
• Understanding the terrain and conditions is key to successful hunting.
• Communication with game biologists can yield important data about animal populations.
• Hunting multiple states can help mitigate pressure in popular areas.
• Planning and preparation are essential for a successful hunting experience.
• The Western Rookie podcast offers valuable insights for aspiring hunters.

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Dan Johnson (00:00.795)
All right, everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Nine Finger Chronicles podcast. I'm your host, Dan Johnson, and today we're joined by the host of the Western rookie, Brian Krebs. Brian, what's up, dude?

Brian Krebs (00:14.021)
Just living the dream, man, trying to stay warm, getting ready for another year.

Dan Johnson (00:18.619)
Yeah. So the first time I ever heard of you, you were just a scooping machine, right? You were just that guy who, who was out in the middle of nowhere picking up shed antlers, what seemed for like eight months of the year. So have you, have you found any sheds yet?

Brian Krebs (00:38.523)
I found one and I passed. I passed on it. I was actually coming down to your neck of the woods in Iowa to buy a brush hog on Facebook Marketplace to do food plots. And there was a four point shed on the side of the interstate. And I remembered where it was because it was right by the Menards on my turnoff. know, so I'm like, all right, I'm going to pick up this brush hog. I'm going to check out that shed again on the way back. It's like a mile after Menards. And I see it and I saw it again. And now I'm in the opposite lane and I'm like,

That's not worth it.

Dan Johnson (01:10.365)
So it wasn't big enough to just like slam on the brakes in the middle of the interstate and pull off to the shoulder and go and get it.

Brian Krebs (01:20.151)
No, and I would have had to jump the fence in the median too. And yeah, it wasn't, I don't know. In my earlier days, I probably would have.

Dan Johnson (01:28.731)
Yeah. So let me ask you this. How big does a shed need to be in order for you to hop out of your car and go pick it up?

Brian Krebs (01:39.149)
I would definitely would have, I probably would have done this one here. This is a antler mount, but it's the only thing I had close enough to grab. But I would jump out and grab a shed like that. Two year old, probably, it's probably the where I'd put it, like a two year old shed, a decent two year old. I think this was a small two year old, so.

Dan Johnson (01:44.38)
Okay.

Dan Johnson (01:49.743)
Okay.

Dan Johnson (01:53.211)
Gotcha.

Gotcha. All right. Well, you passed on sheds. Maybe it gets bigger next year if you drive by the same area.

Brian Krebs (02:01.861)
I feel...

Yeah, I'm letting the sheds grow. Let them go so they can grow. Yeah, I don't know. just maybe that's just everyone's like character arc, right? Like you find one and then you're addicted. You just want to pick up bone. And now you're just like, you know what? I really don't need to spin a 20 foot trailer around on the interstate to go get this thing.

Dan Johnson (02:06.916)
Yep.

Dan Johnson (02:17.724)
Mm-hmm.

Dan Johnson (02:22.884)
Right. you were pulling a trailer too. Okay, yep. There you go. There you go. I don't blame you, dude. I don't blame you. Okay, let's see here. Before we get started with the meat and potatoes, I'm just gonna run through real quick the partners of the Nine Finger Chronicles just to get this out of the way. If you're looking for a saddle, saddle hunting accessories, go check out Tethered. If you want, in my opinion, one of the best broadheads on the market, go check out wasparchery.com.

Brian Krebs (02:25.455)
Yeah, I mean, it's a seven foot brush hog, so yeah.

Dan Johnson (02:52.412)
I believe they have a new head out this year. I'm gonna be talking with one of the guys from Wasp here pretty soon for the Hunting Gear podcast to kind of cover that. But I do have a discount code for Wasp and that's NFC20 for 20 % off. Of course, Vortex Optics, everybody knows Vortex, everybody loves Vortex, vortexoptics.com. Code Blue Scents, man I'm a huge.

fan now of trying to implement mock scrapes into my hunting strategy every year, especially pairing them with a good trail camera. So code blue sense dot com discount code NFC two zero for 20 % off. And then we have Huntworth love Huntworth, affordable, high end, right? I'm going to put it up there with the elite brands that everybody knows about. They have solids this year. I'm a big fan of solids. So go check out Huntworth gear dot com.

And then last but not least, have Reveal Trail Cameras, easy setup, it takes pictures, it sends it to your phone. That's exactly what I want my cellcams to do. So go check out tacticam.com slash cameras, and then of course, Full Sneak Gear, my company. If you like badass t-shirts that basically tell everybody that you're a hunter, go to fullsneakgear.com and check it out. All right, Brian, you've created something recently that I found,

Brian Krebs (04:12.507)
Yes, sir.

Dan Johnson (04:17.249)
not only extremely simple, that I can't believe people haven't done something like this 10, 15 years ago. You know what I mean? Like why hasn't anything like this been done? And so why don't you explain to us the thought process behind this calendar that you've created and take us into the details of it and why it's important.

Brian Krebs (04:29.071)
Yeah.

Brian Krebs (04:44.901)
Yeah, I mean, I'll start out with like the why it's important piece. And like you said, it's a problem. Like everyone has the same problem. And I've been doing it for 10 years on my own. And it took me 10 years to realize, this would probably be very valuable for the community. But when you hunt the West, there's deadlines, dates, application periods, point periods, and every state's different. when I was going through this, eventually I got all the way through it. And I was like, how many are there?

Dan Johnson (05:14.789)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Krebs (05:15.065)
And there's over 75 different deadline periods, just deadlines alone. That doesn't count species. If you're like getting into the species level, I think there's closer to like 200, 250 different like Colorado elk, Wyoming antelope, Montana mule deer, all of them. And they literally go from January to December. You know, the last point period to buy is like Montana preference points through the end of December.

Dan Johnson (05:32.909)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Krebs (05:41.015)
Oregon's in December, South Dakota's in December. The first application is Wyoming Elk for non-residents in January. And so it's just a barrage of things you have to remember if you're like actively trying to get a Western tag, especially if you like, you're like, I don't know where this tag's gonna come from this year. I don't have enough points. I'm gonna have to do a couple different apps. Some states you have to apply in the spring to build your point. So that one really trips up a lot of people. They'll come in in September when Montana and

Wyoming points are due and they're like, I'm gonna buy my Colorado points as well and then you find out you had to apply in April and do a point only unit code to get your point. You're like, well I wasted a whole year. And so what I've been doing since I started hunting the West right out of college, it's almost 10 years now, is I've been putting little meeting notices on my work calendar like five days ahead of the deadline especially for that back then it was just the core like elk states. And I put them up as reoccurring.

Dan Johnson (06:21.326)
Right.

Dan Johnson (06:34.563)
Right.

Brian Krebs (06:39.203)
Which kind of bit me a couple of years because these dates move around every year. It's like why Idaho just moved their over the counter tag sale back 10 days this year. So yeah, they just play games. don't understand it. So I've been doing this and then it hit me like, I could turn this into a downloadable calendar for anyone. So if people work in an office, they probably have seen like the company will send out your holiday calendar and you just double click this.

Dan Johnson (06:49.059)
Really.

Brian Krebs (07:07.585)
ICS file. It's like an Excel file, but it's an ICS file and it'll open up your calendar and you just hit import and it adds like every holiday to your calendar. It's the same thing with these Western application deadlines. It'll add a half hour meeting notice to your calendar and we've got every single one of them in the West. We're actually by the time this podcast launches, we're going to throw in Iowa as well, just because it's a point state and it's an application state, even though it's not really Western. But a lot of people are like, Hey, I both. Can you throw in Iowa?

Dan Johnson (07:34.147)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Brian Krebs (07:37.251)
And so we'll put Iowa in there as well. And you can pick all of them. There's an All States file where you click that and you get all 75 of those suckers. Or you can be like, hey, no, that's too busy. I don't want to mess up my calendar. And you just go through and pick the ones you want. It's free. If you change your mind, go get it again. And it works really good. They show up as free, so you're not going to get in trouble at work blocking off your calendar. They show up as private. So if you hunt with a bunch of ant eyes, they're not going to throw a fit.

Dan Johnson (07:53.07)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (08:04.162)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Krebs (08:06.329)
And it's got a link to the state game agency as well. if you're like, when you see it's when you should do it, right? That's when you remember. Just open it up, click Colorado CPS and go over there, CPW and go over there and get your stuff done.

Dan Johnson (08:17.623)
Right. Yeah. And that was going to definitely be my next answer because outside of

You know, when I think of the West for me, and when you start getting into the points game, it's you got Kansas, you got Iowa, and then you have what was almost the West. Like I consider South Dakota, North Dakota, even Nebraska a little bit a Western state because of the multi species opportunities that those have. So.

That was gonna be my question of when like when and if you're going to do the whitetail like is Kansas in the plans and and Okay

Brian Krebs (08:55.653)
Kansas is already there. So we did everything west of the Missouri first pass and Alaska. We even threw in California because we're an inclusive network. But I have a really bad habit of making people laugh right when they take a drink. No, but yeah, Kansas and Nebraska are in there. The Dakotas are in there. And you're right, they're west.

Dan Johnson (09:00.884)
Okay. In Alaska.

Dan Johnson (09:11.863)
take a drink. Yeah, that almost came out the old nose.

Brian Krebs (09:22.095)
There's a distinct difference between Iowa and Nebraska. Like Iowa is cornfields, Nebraska's cattle range. So, yeah, we're definitely going to throw in Iowa because it's a point state because people hunt both. mean, yeah, the Western rookie is, is meant for Western hunting, but a lot of the listeners are whitetail hunters that are, you know, looking at more information to go West. I don't know as many of the Eastern States, cause I don't travel. I haven't historically traveled for whitetail cause we own five, 600 acres locally.

and I still can't tag out some years, so why spend more money to not tag out in other states? So I'll see if there's other states out there that are big point states that people want. We can throw them in.

Dan Johnson (09:56.3)
Right.

Dan Johnson (10:02.604)
Yeah, I can't honestly east of the Mississippi River. I can't think of any I'm sure there's little areas like I believe there is a couple counties in Kentucky and in Maybe West Virginia or Virginia. I can't remember that are bow only counties and they might have a lottery system or a draw system, but I'm not a hundred percent sure on that. I know they're bow only but I don't know if they have a

Brian Krebs (10:22.779)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (10:32.392)
lottery or some kind of preference point system to get a hold of them but outside of that those that example I don't think east of the Mississippi River there's any states I think everything's over the counter other than

Brian Krebs (10:38.203)
Yeah.

Brian Krebs (10:43.853)
is non-resident like Illinois and Iowa, or sorry, Illinois and Ohio, over the counter.

Dan Johnson (10:48.32)
Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's still over the counter in Illinois and you can get two buck tags, I think still in Illinois and Ohio is a one buck state for and you can just show up whenever and pick up the tag. So either way right now, I mean, now there's a shortcut available, right? Because I'll be honest, one of the biggest intimidating factors for me when I started my whole

Western journey outside of Idaho when I started hunting Idaho and when I started hunting Colorado both of those were over-the-counter so there it was a non-issue for me at that point but if I wanted to hunt Wyoming if I wanted to hunt like Now Colorado we're starting to get into these Draw systems these potent like I believe New Mexico a lot of places in New Mexico Co are lottery

style and maybe even Utah are lottery style draws and applications and things like that. So it becomes really confusing really fast. The calendar helps solve a lot of those issues, but outside of the calendar itself, what are some tips, tricks, tactics that you use to, because really it comes down to organization.

Brian Krebs (12:14.536)
Yeah, I mean it it In the West you kind of hear this thing called like an app strategy and it it kind of sounds like a you know a Millennial like trying to make this cooler than it is but it's true like you everyone's got an app strategy And it's kind of like your little fingerprint I've just I'm working on the final edits of an article that we're gonna throw up on the Western Ricky podcast too That kind of explains all of this, but you got to come up with a strategy

Dan Johnson (12:28.223)
you

Brian Krebs (12:42.733)
And so like my strategies go west every year, key number one. Usually it's archery elk. Like that used to be our big hunt. And so it's like, got to, we had to be able to bounce around a few different States. Cause like our favorite spot, Wyoming is turning into an every four year draw. Right. And it's preference points with a random kicker. So it's like, we could drive with zero points, 14 % chance, but that's pretty low odds versus like guaranteed if we had four points.

So every four years, basically, we plan on that. Montana is like every other. You can't go every year in Montana right now. It's becoming almost every two years even. So now you have a gap, right? Montana, Wyoming, Montana, Colorado. Montana, Wyoming, Montana, Colorado. You gotta have that rotation. And so that's what our strategy has been.

And it gets harder and harder every year. Now it's getting even more hard with, like you mentioned, Colorado archery's going to application. It's going to be a lot of zero point units for a while. So you can still get a tag, but you have to do it in April. Yeah. And then from there, just pick what hunts do you want to do down the road? And where do you want to build points for tomorrow? It's almost like, I got to get my job done today. I also got to invest for my future. And so you got to have both.

Dan Johnson (13:42.742)
Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Krebs (13:58.459)
aspects and that's where it becomes unique because everyone will be like Utah I'm not building points for 20 years to draw a tag and the other guys like Man, I want to chase a 400 inch bull with DC Outfitters someday I need to start building points in Utah and it's just everyone has a different preference when it comes to that

Dan Johnson (14:14.87)
There are a lot of thoughts right now around why Colorado and other states are going to preference points. South Dakota used to be a guaranteed draw. It's not a guaranteed draw anymore for mule deer.

Why are we seeing more states in your opinion going to draws? Why is Colorado going to a draw system and not like ditching the whole over the counter thing and going to draws?

Brian Krebs (14:50.841)
In my opinion, it's managing supply and demand. So Colorado specifically, they've come out and said like they're trying to reduce, they're hearing a lot of people say it's too pressured. There's too many trucks at the trailhead. We got to fix this. And they're balancing this very, very precise, you know, scale of pressure versus opportunity, right? They want people to go hunt. They make money from the tag sales. A lot of these state game agencies are like solely funded from tag sales and 80 % of those are non-resident tag sales.

So as much as the people really complain that non-residents come hunt, that's where a lot of their funding comes from. Montana, it's like 45 to one. A Montana resident buys an elk take for 20 bucks. You and I get charged 8.51. It's nuts. So I think they're balancing that. They just don't have enough elk. It's too pressured. There's too many people. The experience is declining. And so what Colorado has stated is like, we're not going to necessarily reduce tags. We're just going to make people pick a unit and stay in that unit. So if you bump out to

Dan Johnson (15:27.336)
Mm-hmm.

Dan Johnson (15:31.722)
Yeah.

Brian Krebs (15:49.707)
Unit 13 and it sucks. You go to 14 and that sucks and you go to 15 and that sucks and then you go to 16. Well, you've just pressured elk in four different units and the perceived hunting pressure is a lot higher than if you just stick to 13 and grind it out. So that's what they're doing across the large West. Like there's some species that are like really declining like mule deer and populations are dropping and they just have to, you know, limit opportunity to maintain a renewable resource.

Dan Johnson (16:15.561)
Right. Yeah. And that's the that's the the biological answer and things like that. And then you got obviously the nonresidents bitching and complaining about or the the residents bitching and complaining about how they don't have the opportunities like they used to have and things like that. I I it becomes very difficult because in any situation I feel and maybe maybe I'm wrong here, but I feel

Brian Krebs (16:21.488)
Yeah.

Brian Krebs (16:34.458)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (16:45.437)
Like the residents should have the right away in the say of what goes down, right? And obviously I'm from Iowa and there's a lot of reasons that I can go into about how land ownership by non-residents is actually having a big impact in the state. Anyway, a thousand different directions to go there. But...

Brian Krebs (16:54.287)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (17:13.725)
It becomes tricky, like you said, with a state like Wyoming, where it's very low populated state, they have a ton of resource as far as wildlife is concerned, and the funding from the state, from all of the tag sales majority comes from non-residents. So is a non-resident willing to have funding cut just to have a better experience? And so that's like a teeter totter, dude. I don't know what the right answer is.

Brian Krebs (17:41.925)
Yeah, I think it's very complex and you know, it's easy to forget about the money side of it when you see five Minnesota plates at a trailhead. mean, I get it. I feel that I'm a private landowner. My family has been two, three generations of family farms and landowners. Like we get it. That's why we buy farms because we love hunting and that's where we choose to put our money in. Some people like fishing and they buy a bass boat instead. I mean, everyone's got their own play. I think it's easy to forget though when you're the resident of like how much money that is.

Dan Johnson (17:49.31)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Krebs (18:12.141)
In Montana, think it was like millions of dollars that we pump into the game and fish agency. I think it's also going to be very hard to see that get pulled away. It's like, you're going to be like five years, you're to be like, what happened? Like these trailheads aren't maintained, the trails are shit. you're like, yeah, five years ago, you guys said you didn't want any more non-residents. So we cut that and that went with 80 % of our budget. So that's why everything sucks now. And you're like, well, don't do that, go back. You know what I mean?

Dan Johnson (18:16.477)
Millions, yeah.

Dan Johnson (18:36.509)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Brian Krebs (18:41.971)
So it's tricky. It really is. And I agree with you. The states own the wildlife. I mean, that's our North American conservation model. And so they own the wildlife. They get to choose. I think it just leads to a very uncomfortable question of what's a deer worth? And no one wants to put a dollar value on an animal, but their resources, they're valuable. And the only way to protect them is putting a dollar value on them.

Dan Johnson (18:47.069)
Do you th-

Dan Johnson (19:00.115)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (19:06.877)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Krebs (19:10.199)
all the things that we don't hunt, no one cares about. No one's out there saving all these other species. Hunters are out there saving elk, saving deer, saving antelope with all the work we do because there's a value associated.

Dan Johnson (19:12.573)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (19:20.732)
Right, right. Well, and you I don't know when the last time you went and checked out outfitter pricing, right? And some of those dear values and experience values are I look at something like that. I'm like, holy shit, like 10, 10 grand for a mule deer hunt. Seventy five hundred dollars for Iowa whitetail hunt. Like my lord, that's ridiculous. And it just it makes me go, holy cow, I'm I'm I am literally blessed right now with the

Brian Krebs (19:31.599)
bonkers.

It's bonkers.

Brian Krebs (19:43.727)
Yeah.

Brian Krebs (19:49.114)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (19:50.344)
the public land that I've hunted throughout the years and the farms that I have access to in Iowa, right? And so it it blows my mind, man.

Brian Krebs (19:58.16)
Yeah.

Yeah, it's a, unfortunately it's a pay to play game, but like, man, anything in life that's worth doing is pay to play. Like, yeah, you can fish from shore, but it's not the same as a boat. Like if you really get into it, buy a boat, save up. Like it's life, like yeah, it sucks. We all have to do it.

Dan Johnson (20:14.727)
Yeah. Yeah.

Do you see a lot of guys who have been going out West and doing the over counter game, just being like, this shit's too complicated and they just give up. And then it kind of turns into this bell curve trend where it becomes complicated. There's a huge drop off in non-resident hunters in some of these Western States.

Then because there's a huge drop off, the game starts to get better, bigger animals are being killed, higher numbers of game is on the landscape. People now then hear about that, they start going back, and then the cycle continues like that.

Brian Krebs (21:02.299)
I think that happens and there's a couple examples, but I think it happens on a longer time horizon than I've been in the game for. So for example, in the late nineties and the early 2000s, Southeast Montana was a Mecca of mule deer hunting. mean, there was good bucks everywhere. And then people started, the word got out and it was over the counter. Basically you had to apply, but it was a zero point draw and they got hit hard. They had been for 20 years, they've been hit hard. And then we started to get some droughts and

the last like we, I think we just bottomed out like two years ago where hunting was terrible and people are like, you I don't know if they're going to other places, but they're not going there anymore. So I don't know if they gave up hunting or not, but that pressure is backing off now in that specific region. And there's a lot of people really invested on trying to bring that quality back. And so I'm sure they're going to figure it out. mean, like I said, when there's a value associated, people have invested interest to figure it out and fix it.

Dan Johnson (21:48.274)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Krebs (21:59.055)
So they're gonna fix it. And then when that comes back, you're gonna see people like wanna go back again. And it might be another 20 years to fix it. So yeah, definitely. I think there's slow curves. We saw that with COVID, saw a ton of people get into it. Like, I'm gonna go hunt. I'm gonna bring home my own meat. And then they're like, man, this isn't easy. And then they quit as soon as the food's back at the grocery store.

Dan Johnson (22:00.23)
Right.

Dan Johnson (22:14.514)
Exactly, That's yeah. Covid was a very interesting time. I can just remember not only the explosion in content that was consumed, but also just everybody seemed to be talking about getting back in the woods again. just guys who had almost hung it up for however many years were back in it. That's just.

a personal experience from just some of my buddies who used to be hunting, used to be trappers, and then they quit and then they got back into it because it was something to do outside. and then since then, they don't do it anymore. So.

Brian Krebs (22:55.877)
Dude, I was so angry. The COVID, the gas was like less than a dollar. No one was outside and it was shed season and I'm like, I'm gonna rake in sheds. And I hunted harder than I ever have. I found five antlers that season. It was ungodly bad. And I'm like, just, this was like a, like a, just lofted me a little underhand to hit a grand slam and win the World Series and I missed.

Dan Johnson (23:10.501)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (23:18.086)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Krebs (23:21.139)
I just I don't know what happened. It was the perfect storm for me shed hunting that year because like yeah, get out No one was getting outside all those people hadn't picked it up yet because it was still like lockdown Don't go outside. I'm like I'm shed hunting like I'm in the middle of the woods come find me Yeah

Dan Johnson (23:33.04)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you this during those COVID years, I can remember driving down the interstate in South Dakota and there was nobody on the roads, dude. was everybody like guys were guys weren't traveling if they had preference points. But then the next year. So my perfect example is Western or my Wyoming, right?

Brian Krebs (23:46.117)
Yeah, weird.

Brian Krebs (23:55.77)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (24:00.825)
So during the COVID, the big COVID year, I should have cashed in all of my preference, my preference points. And I could have got these spectacular units for like 50 % off basically, just five points, whatever. The next year I documented it and I'm like, okay, I'm going in five points for this, 10 points, 12 points, whatever, max points, you know, and you're just sitting there going, holy shit. It's...

Brian Krebs (24:23.291)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (24:28.803)
it's back to normal now. And so I should have taken advantage of it, but I didn't.

Brian Krebs (24:31.78)
Yeah.

Brian Krebs (24:35.269)
Yeah, there's a, like when you talk points for the West, first of all, what's annoying is there is not a single state that has the same system. Not one. Montana and Wyoming are almost one of the most confusing. Colorado's is by far the simplest. If you have four points, it's preference, whoever's the highest wins. So, know, 10, he gets one, nine, they get three. Now there's this many left. There's four have already gone. You go all the way down the list. At some point bracket, it's gonna split.

Right? They're going to have five tags left and a hundred people applied with three points. So five of those people get it, five percent chance. And then no one else below it. It's simple. You have to have more points to win. Wyoming, Montana, there's like, we're going to serve this many for zero point holders. And then these many are squared and cubed. And, you know, it just gets messy after that. And the risk with building points, kind of like what you said, there's point creeps. You're chasing a number that's growing all the time. And then you finally get these points. You cash them in in April.

And then that summer there's a drought and your unit burns to the ground. it's, there's, it's like, I invested 10 years saving for this and a wildfire hit. And it's not like, you know, usually the whole unit doesn't burn down, but there's a huge risk with points. Like I don't view points like having a lot of points is a good thing. I think it's more of a burden. Like, my gosh, I have 20 points. How should I spend these? How do I not mess these up?

Dan Johnson (25:34.958)
Yeah, no shit.

Dan Johnson (25:48.415)
yeah.

Brian Krebs (25:57.089)
I'm more of an advocate and we talk about all time in the Western Rookie podcast, like go hunting more. If you hunt a three point unit 10 times in your life versus one 30 point unit, you're gonna shoot more bulls. You're probably gonna shoot bigger bulls over that course of year and you're gonna hunt more, which is the whole goal here. Like imagine not hunting elk for 30 years and then you're gonna go try and pull it off on a 400 inch bull. Good luck.

Dan Johnson (26:09.978)
Right, exactly.

Dan Johnson (26:16.142)
Yeah, and so that was kind of my mindset going back in the day, going to Colorado and Idaho and then collecting points in Wyoming so that when the time came to go do this bad ass hunt, I had the preference points to basically choose my, do whatever. And I think I'm sitting on maybe nine. This summer, I think I will buy my 10th preference point for Wyoming.

Brian Krebs (26:38.0)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (26:43.821)
which should get me in just about any unit I want.

Brian Krebs (26:43.984)
Yeah.

Yeah, that's the sweet spot right now in Wyoming. It used to be like seven, eight. Now it's starting to be like nine, nine, 10. I mean, if anyone out there is like, how do you guys know this stuff? You can either spend like 50 hours a year scouring Game and Fish websites and reports and PDFs, or you're to sign up for Go Hunt and they tell you all of

Dan Johnson (27:07.693)
Yeah, the straight up shortcut. It's two clicks, three clicks, you got it. You pick the species, yep.

Brian Krebs (27:13.901)
You can filter like I want to 360 inch bulls. Okay. Filter Wyoming's units by 360 inch bulls. You're to find that most of them have grizzly bears, but go for it. Yeah, it's awesome. So yeah, you're getting close man. And that's what we talk about. Like you have a, what it sounds like a short term and a midterm point strategy lined up, maybe even longterm 10 points. That's a long time. I didn't maybe call that longterm, but that's what I do. It's like, how do I hunt elk every year? And then five years from now, like start drawing some, and I'm in that five to 10 year window now.

Dan Johnson (27:21.583)
Yep, yep.

Brian Krebs (27:43.323)
where I can start drawing a little bit better takes. And like the Wyoming general is a decent take. It's way better than over the counter Colorado or general Montana. So that's like a midterm strategy. Colorado used to be a short term strategy and it still is. And then you get your long term strategy. For you it's Wyoming 10 points. For me it's late season Arizona. And Utah. I've been building points in Utah and I'm starting to wonder if that was a good idea. No, it's I just, so I made a little like.

Dan Johnson (28:00.259)
Yep. Yep. Yep.

Dan Johnson (28:07.982)
Is that point creep going crazy there?

Brian Krebs (28:13.039)
passing remark about DC Outfitters, but Ryan Carter, to me, is like the best, most knowledgeable elk guide in the world. mean, the way he gets on 400 inch bulls, he hunts them like whitetails a lot of times and just playing chess, 3D chess. And I just would love to hunt that bulls like that someday. And like Utah is a place where you can do it, but it's going to take 25 years to try the tag. And I'm like.

Man, he's first of all, he's gonna be retired by then. All the bulls I'm looking at now are gonna be long dead. And I don't know if I'm gonna be in the same shape 25 years from now to do this.

Dan Johnson (28:43.058)
yeah, yeah. That's my issue is one of my needs is like I, my doctor told me straight up, dude, you, you're only 44, but you qualify for a knee, a full knee replacement. And so I'm trying to balance that with my preference points and wondering if I should do the hunt before it or if I should do the hunt after it or like, so that that's a whole different like story there. But, I want to ask you a question.

I don't know if you dig into this when you're on Go Hunt. And maybe this impacts, you you have a lot of people bitching and complaining about non-residents showing up, the trail heads being packed and all these things. Have you noticed when you're doing your research on Go Hunt if success rates have also gone up for hunters or have they stayed the same? Because if we're trying to balance a

heard, feel like success rates are key indicators of how many tags should be allocated to the units.

Brian Krebs (29:50.499)
Yeah, that's a great question. I think success rates have dropped in recent years, but I think it was because there was a lot of people hunting for the first time in 2020, 2021, 2022, like first, second, third time, whatever. And like, you know, as well as I do, I mean, it doesn't happen very often on your first time doing anything like yourself, Dakota mule deer adventures, my archery elk. Like I've shot bulls with a rifle, but that's.

way different than like, I'm going to start archery, Elkharting. Like you're not going to shoot anything for five years, dude. And I hope you do. I hope I'm wrong, but just statistically, it's a very low percentage odds game, even if you're experienced. And so I think the long term is pretty much hovering around that 10, 15 % total success rate. And so I don't think it's really changing much. Now I think certain units at a micro scale are popping off.

Dan Johnson (30:29.614)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Krebs (30:47.811)
and dying all the time. And so I think people just kind of reallocate and then like everyone knows there's less and less hunters every year. Tag sales are going down, but pressure is going up. And so that's where some people are like, I don't get it. I think it's just guys like you and I and everyone else out there that loves hunting. Like we're just hunting multiple states now where before like you never used to go west. So your trail wasn't, your truck wasn't at that trailhead. I used to only hunt one state a year. Now I'm trying to hunt like two or three Lord willing in the way of time. And so

Dan Johnson (31:15.201)
Right. Yeah.

Brian Krebs (31:17.648)
I think that's what's happening and it's just less people hunting more often.

Dan Johnson (31:21.986)
Yeah, I think, we got, and that's two things there. The success rate, new hunters have come in, the success rate looks like they've dropped, but really all it is is watered down statistics because you have a whole bunch of new people coming into. Like it took me six years to kill a mule deer spot in stock with a bow. exactly. And so I'm sitting here, I'm grinding it out, doing that, and so that.

Brian Krebs (31:37.072)
Yeah.

Brian Krebs (31:43.365)
Yeah, I mean with a bow, sticks and strings are tough,

Dan Johnson (31:51.437)
That's one in six for me.

Brian Krebs (31:53.573)
But that's 16 and 2 thirds percent. I mean, you're beating the odds. Isn't that crazy?

Dan Johnson (31:57.901)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that now that you say that, that's crazy, right? 16 % success rate.

Brian Krebs (32:03.823)
Yeah, I mean, it's like shooting a deer is and you're doing spot and stock mule deer, which I would probably argue is lower. Like the 10 % figure is everything. Rifles, residents, non-residents, bows, elk, which are a little bit easier to hunt with a bow than mule deer. Everything. So like I would probably say spot and stock mule deer is probably half that. Six percent.

Dan Johnson (32:19.565)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I'd have to go check into that. But when I was digging into the Colorado Colorado and Wyoming preference points game along, this was a long time ago and I started seeing like.

What was it? was five, no, six or 7 % success rate for Archery Elk in some of the units in Colorado that I was in. And then you get there and you understand why Colorado has such a low success rate because you're just like, you're looking straight up at this hill and you're going, I don't even know if I can make it up there. You know what I mean? So.

Brian Krebs (33:02.703)
Yeah.

Yeah, dude, that's a big thing. I I look at maps before I apply to units and I look at how close those lines are together and it's always looks flatter on the screen. So yeah, no, I don't know if it's such a complicated topic, like just success rates. So like, for example, Wyoming success rates dropped and the harvest dropped, but it's more due to the winter that they had in 2022, 2023 were like.

Dan Johnson (33:14.24)
Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Krebs (33:32.985)
In some places they had complete wipeout of Antelope, 80%, 90%, no recruitment, no funds, Miele deer about just as hard. The elk fared a little better. There's places in Utah as well. Like, okay, when you have a year like that, like your success rates are going to go down. Like they adjusted tags, they did everything they could to kind of right the ship, but it's such a complicated question. I mean, the weather plays a huge factor in it. You get it eight, like when I went Southeast Montana, 75 degrees in November. I mean, that's not ideal.

Dan Johnson (33:38.828)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Krebs (34:01.401)
running conditions for mule deer the week before Thanksgiving and so we didn't see deer.

Dan Johnson (34:03.446)
Right.

Yeah, yeah, it's and that's the frustrating part. Like you said, a unit gets burnt down to the ground, hot weather and the thing like I know in Iowa, crops are coming out late October, early November. I know in Iowa when because I live here, if there is going to be a cattle shift in certain pastures or whatever, you go out west.

Brian Krebs (34:21.647)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (34:31.561)
and you do all the scouting, the satellite imagery is perfect, you check the rain, you're like, dude, this is gonna be awesome. You show up and there's a thousand head of cattle in this pasture and you're like, what? I don't have a backup plan now.

Brian Krebs (34:45.039)
Yeah, the real bad one is sheep.

Dan Johnson (34:49.171)
out west or what state? Yeah.

Brian Krebs (34:49.339)
So yeah, any state. So elk and cattle can get along, the elk go into deeper, nastier spots or higher elevation. It works out. We had a 350-inch bull crash in on us with cattle in this area. The cattle are usually down lower by water. But sheep go the whole mountain, they are like flies on a barbecue. Like they just.

devour everything they work in this huge flock, they push everything out. So if there's sheep in your unit that like actively right now it's like don't even bother there's not gonna be elk there.

Dan Johnson (35:27.392)
Yeah, and I personally have never experienced that. I've heard guys talk about it, but not to the...

Brian Krebs (35:34.137)
It's not so, you think about cattle in the West and then you get to your spot and it's not a thousand sheep, it's like 5,000 sheep or 10,000 sheep. And they just come through and everything's gone and you're like, holy shit, what happened? Yeah.

Dan Johnson (35:46.207)
Yeah. Vacuums. Yeah. And it's hard to know. I mean, you would have to do some major research or know somebody that lived out there in order to be like, hey, listen, here's the grazing rotation schedule for this area. And that's damn near impossible to know.

Brian Krebs (35:51.993)
Yeah.

Brian Krebs (36:02.212)
Yeah.

Brian Krebs (36:06.277)
There's grazing allotment layers that just tell you like this piece is rented or leased out for grazing, but you don't know if it's like winter range, summer range. That part's tricky. Typically the higher up it is, the more summer range. The lower down it is, it's winter range, but yeah, it's tricky.

Dan Johnson (36:21.419)
Yeah. Okay. Real quick. Are there any other benefits? Cause like, can't think of another, I'm sure there is other websites like go hunt that are available. But when, cause I, I always recommend if you're starting to play this game, go, go to go hunt, spend the a hundred and however, 50 bucks, 200 bucks, whatever it is for the, the what's that called? The what? Insider. Yeah. Yep.

Brian Krebs (36:41.765)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Brian Krebs (36:48.027)
It's called Insider. Yeah, it's an application. It's a membership and there's a ton of tools that Go Hunt has and it's 150 bucks like you said. If you use the code Western, there's a few codes out there but like mine is Western, they'll give you $50 in credit to a gear shop and there's actually good gear. mean this is not the T-MU gear shop here. It's like the guys that are killing giants every year. They're just like, hey, what do you use? And then they put that in their gear shop.

Dan Johnson (37:03.284)
Okay.

Brian Krebs (37:13.935)
You get $50 back every year, so that's pretty cool. And they've never increased their price since they've launched. They've only added content and value and features the whole way. from that point, it's like, OK, this isn't going to be like $150 this year, and then they're going to gouge me next year. Yeah.

Dan Johnson (37:29.768)
Yeah. Okay, so here's the thing though. got, you can go in and you can just start clicking buttons on units. And really what I found is then I start daydreaming and I kind of get off course and I'm like, whoa, whoa, check out this. This unit has 385 inch bulls. Like I can't wait to hunt this and you. Yeah, or something, something crazy like that. Right. And you, start daydreaming like.

Brian Krebs (37:38.938)
Yeah.

Brian Krebs (37:44.473)
Yeah.

Brian Krebs (37:51.163)
and 70 % success rates.

Dan Johnson (37:58.131)
Every once in a while I'll go on whitetail properties and I'll start daydreaming. Yeah.

Brian Krebs (38:01.731)
Yeah, yeah, it's the same thing. And then you're like, well, this is only 2000 acres. That's not really enough. You know, I want more. I'm looking at $10 million properties and I'm broke.

Dan Johnson (38:07.814)
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Yeah, I'm going to by 3000 acres and then we'll that's a good starting point. So when you get to go hunt and just in your experience here, where's the starting point?

Brian Krebs (38:16.571)
Yeah, yeah.

Brian Krebs (38:25.499)
Yeah, well you gotta you gotta have an idea in mind of what you want to do I mean like if you're like I want to hunt the West I'm gonna go to go hunt and they're gonna tell me what I should do You gotta have a little bit more info than that's like do you want to go on an archery on a rifle hunt? Do you want to hunt elk? Do you want to hunt mule deer? Do you want to hunt antelope? You kind of got to figure that out and then from there you're like, okay like this year for example me and my wife She's finally able to hunt the West she's done with residency. So last year we did antelope in Wyoming this year She's like I want to go on a mule deer hunt

And I'm like, perfect. So I look, I look at all of our points and I look at rifle meal deer and I start looking at a couple different states I have in mind where we've got points and just what are our options? Like what's going to give us like the best mix of like size, private land, public land ratios and success rates and more on the success rates. Cause we just want to have fun. not out here chasing booners. And then I filter and I just check every state. So I went to Montana and I said, here's how many points we have. Can we draw a limited entry permit in Montana?

And it's like, but it's not really going to get us much right now with our point level. So then I went to Wyoming. said, we got this many points in Wyoming. What does that look like? And it's like, a little better, a little better options. you know, and so I keep those in mind. And then I go to Colorado and I filter on the points I have. And it's like, hey, wow. OK, with the points we have in Colorado, like these units are definitely better. They are bigger bucks. They have higher success rates. They have more public land. I also know a good friend that lives in this unit. So.

This is going to be a key. so that's kind of how I start is just like, what do I want to do? And then what state and units going to give me the best opportunity to go do that. So I start there. Once you have that figured out, there's also a ton of tactical information out there on Go Hunt. Like what's the deadline for a state? What does the state's application system look like? Does this state weigh your first, second, third, and fourth option or just your first option? Like there's a whole bunch of games that you can do with these applications and they just have all that information there.

From there you go to draw odds and you like the most accurate draw odds in the world and you can make sure you have enough points and you can see the trend. That's more so the like archery shooters no gap shooting. You're kind of gap shooting here. You're like, okay, last year it was a hundred percent at five points, but 10 % at four points. So this year I think that's going to go up a little bit. And now the five points not going to be a guarantee, but it's probably going to be pretty high odds.

Brian Krebs (40:49.083)
And I have five points. So I'm going to roll the dice. It's probably going to be 70 % that I draw this tag. Or you can be like, oh no, this is, I have four points. Last year was only 10 % with four points. I'm not drawing this tag this year. So you kind of have to gap analysis that. Then you can move over. There's got a bunch of different tools for mapping. They've got 3D mapping. They've got a lot of tools. So like you can see elevation, shot angles, viewing knobs, and then you just start your e-scouting package from there. And they have start to finish. They have everything you need.

in that service, that membership, so like you don't have to pay for another map. You don't have to shop somewhere else. They have all the information, all the stuff. It's literally one spot.

Dan Johnson (41:26.632)
Right. So this was, you know, kind of stepping away from the the electronics side of things. There is this. Maybe it's go hunt, maybe it's some other forum type stuff like there are people and I was one of them because I didn't understand how this game was played, right? And you start talking to people and you go, hey, I have 10 points.

Brian Krebs (41:48.698)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (41:55.708)
does anybody have any experience in this unit? Are there good numbers? And so basically what you're doing is you're asking other hunters to give you a shit ton of information and it really doesn't happen because you start to learn that that's not the way to go about it, right? Once you've done your e-scouting and you say, okay, how do you know whether that...

Brian Krebs (42:09.593)
Yeah. No.

Dan Johnson (42:23.718)
that area that you've scouted is a good area to start. Does it have deer there? Like who do you talk to if you're green about these things that is going to give you accurate information, if any information at all.

Brian Krebs (42:39.097)
Yeah,

There's a couple of ways you could slice that goose. don't think it maybe would be even the most valuable strategy to try to talk to someone. I'll back that up. just thought of the one thing that you can do pretty reliably that nobody does, because we live in a day and age where people are afraid to call someone. But if you pick up the phone and literally call, that state and unit, that region, it's typically region, but if you call the region, the big game biologist, they will share.

Everything they know I mean they're not gonna give you pins of like where they personally have shot deer But that big game biologist will be like yeah your numbers are up like we're seeing a ton of deer in our surveys like You go check out this river basin. Go check out this creek bed You'll find deer like or I mean they'll be honest with you But it's so foreign for so many people to just call a random person on the phone and like Physically well not even physically but just like virtually talk to them. It's like they would text them But that's not you have to call them like you have to pick up the phone and call them

Dan Johnson (43:13.236)
absolutely.

Dan Johnson (43:35.921)
Yeah. Yep. Right.

Brian Krebs (43:41.179)
It's like, yeah, you're an adult. You have to make your own dentist appointment now. Don't text your mom to make it for you.

Dan Johnson (43:44.68)
The the I did that in in Idaho one year I was looking to do a mule deer hunt kind of like a high country mule deer hunt and when I say high country it wasn't as high as Colorado but I mean we're still talking 7,000 feet yeah and so I talked to a game warden in that area or actually and a biologist

Brian Krebs (44:01.947)
Yeah, I mean, that's high.

Dan Johnson (44:11.629)
and I was looking real heavy into this one area and long story short, they were like, hey man, you're going to find deer there, but they're gonna be high and they're gonna be in a lot of trees which makes a lot of this mule deer hunting very difficult. So if you're brand new, and basically they said, he told me, he's like straight up, unless you're really good at what you do, then

this shouldn't be an issue for you, but because you are new, this environment is not going to be conducive to success for you. And so I was like, fair point, fair point. Yeah.

Brian Krebs (44:48.463)
Yeah.

Touche. All right. Yeah, no, they can be good in courses of information for sure. That's probably the one that I would say like, because you could like people there's forums out there and everyone's like, I'm just gonna make a post and ask and it's like, first of all, like, do trust the information that you're gonna get? You're gonna get grilled like one person's gonna tell you to just go do it yourself or like this is the way it goes and like, welcome to the game and someone else be like, there's books everywhere. And then you're like, well, I don't know if that makes sense because

Dan Johnson (45:19.484)
Right.

Brian Krebs (45:19.579)
I would have figured that out on my own and I didn't. I don't, you know what I mean? So it's like, you can't even trust it. Like it's like commenting comments on Facebook. I would say like, there's a couple of ways you can build that confidence. It's a good unit otherwise. And so like, you can look at survey reports and numbers like is this unit over objective for animals? Pretty much every state does this survey and they do it. Some of the times it's every year. Sometimes it's every other year, but they track these units. Like they say this unit can handle a thousand elk. That's what we want to maintain.

Dan Johnson (45:23.131)
Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Krebs (45:49.115)
Right now there's 2,500 elk in this unit. You're like, okay, well it's way over objective. So there are elk in this unit. And then once you hunt more, and that's why I always say hunt more rather than wait for a glory tag, you can start to look at a unit. And like, I know if a unit is over objective in elk, I'm gonna be able to find them. Like I'm gonna put pins on the map and a few of these pins are gonna have fresh elk sign. They're gonna wanna be in September. They're gonna wanna be on north facing slopes, two thirds of the way to the peak on a bench, like in the timber.

It's kind of a calculation and you can find them. Now the first one might not and you're like, you get here and you realize why you go to the next pin and it's loaded. That's one way that you can get confidence in your unit without really talking to anyone else. You look like same with mule deer. This mule deer units got 10,000 deer and there's only like a few isolated pockets of cover. You're like, well, they're not typically just going to be out in the prairie like an antelope. So there's probably deer in this.

one ravine that's got sage brush and cedar trees.

Dan Johnson (46:48.068)
Yeah, or what you could do and this is where I have found the most success is have a podcast for 10 years make a lot of friends and and basically just talk to

Brian Krebs (46:57.776)
Yeah, that's what I was like, I could give you advice that would only work for Dan Johnson. But yeah, if you've just said like, hey, I'm looking to go to Wyoming on an elk hunt, does anyone know of any spots I should look at? You're probably gonna get a bunch of people that like, come hunt with us.

Dan Johnson (47:02.713)
Yeah

Dan Johnson (47:12.483)
Yeah, yeah, right. so, or, you you talk to guys who trust you, right? And so the only other thing that I would, you know, just be completely honest and open with people. The other thing that I would do and a lot of times, especially in the portion of South Dakota for some reason that I was hunting in a handful of years ago before I kind of shifted, like talk to people.

Brian Krebs (47:18.576)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (47:39.759)
talk to the landowners, talk to anybody that you see anywhere, gas stations, things like that. some, like most of the ranchers out there, I would talk to them, like, hey, what do you know about Milder? And they're like, I know that if you pay me this much money, I'll let you hunt my property. And then I'm like, okay, well, I'm not gonna do that, so whatever. And so they got some assholes out there. then, but still, you can find that one person who's just like,

Brian Krebs (48:00.731)
Yeah. Yeah.

Dan Johnson (48:09.219)
Yeah, man, man, when I was when I was a kid or, you know, a couple of years ago, we went on a coyote hunt and and I ran into a whole bunch of mule deer here. Sure enough, I went and checked out the spot and I ran into some mule deer. And so and so just be have open lines of communication with everybody that you know and see on both sides, residents and non residents. And I think that will also help you a lot trying to figure this whole thing out.

Brian Krebs (48:36.603)
Yeah, if you're in person, in unit, that's gonna be the best. mean, boots on the ground is the best way to scout and like talking to people is way better. You can get success that way. I personally don't do it that much. I just like focus on my plan and my hunt. But I mean, I'm not gonna oppose, know, if a game warden stops by, I'm gonna talk to them, but I'm not gonna like ask the lady. It's like, we're checking out. I broke my tripod Wyoming Antelope hunting and we were like, obviously on an antelope hunt, you need a tripod. So.

Dan Johnson (48:58.905)
Yeah.

Brian Krebs (49:04.859)
And my wife was going to use it to shoot off of two as her first hunt. So I wanted to make sure everything was right. And so I'm like, okay, we need to go to Casper and buy a tripod. So we're checking out. Then we go to Kadoba for lunch because we're already in town. And the guy, the guy behind the counter making my burrito, we were decked out in camo. So he knows we're a hunter. He's like, well, what are you guys chasing? And it was like Antelope. He's like, Oh, you should go check this road out that way. There's Antelope there every day. his coworkers like, dude.

He's not going to do that. Like he's hunting a completely different area and those are on the interstate. He's like, there's animal up there every day. I'm like, okay, thanks for the Intel, but does not even remotely help me. So you kind of got a value, like judge of character, like who's telling you this info. I had a game warden in Colorado while I was caping out a bowl at the trailhead said like, dude, if you've got a meal with your tech, there's 180 inch buck up in that Valley. Like he beds down early. You got to get up there early and glass them and build them to bed, but you'll shoot them. And I'm like,

Dan Johnson (49:31.236)
Yeah.

Yeah

Dan Johnson (49:42.244)
Right, right.

You gotta weigh it, yeah.

Brian Krebs (49:59.781)
I've been on here for eight days alone, I think I'm gonna go home.

Dan Johnson (50:02.188)
Yeah, I would love to. I would love to. Well, my friend, great insight, tons of great information on this one. Be sure. two things here. Number one, definitely go to is it the Western rookie or just western rookie dot com?

Brian Krebs (50:06.736)
Yeah.

Brian Krebs (50:20.389)
Just westernrookie.com is our website. threw that off. I built the website in like two days and this whole thing, because I'm like, it's January. I should probably get this out there for application season. So westernrookie.com, there'll be a little free products page. And so we have both the full calendar. It's got everything. Or if you just like, hey, I'm not going to forget the one hunt I go on every year. I just want to remind, get a reminder for points. There's a separate points only version where you can just import all the point deadlines.

So that'll tell you if you have to apply in April in Colorado to get your point, or if you can wait till September 30th to buy your Montana point. So both products out there completely free. Don't need a credit card to check out at all. and you can just import them. It works on all platforms. We've had people to use PCs, Google calendar, iPhones, and androids. It takes a couple more steps on a phone. And we do have an instructions out there and I'm going to be doing a couple of videos, just walking people through. Cause it takes a couple more steps. It's really optimized for a laptop, but

You can do it on a phone.

Dan Johnson (51:18.307)
Right, right. And on top of that, the Western Rookie podcast here on the Sportsman's Empire, I'll tell you this right now, there is no better Western podcast with the knowledge, the knowledge that is given to the listener. There's not, mean, there's, yeah, there's great stories, it's great entertainment, but just the information that's provided to this, to the audience here is second to none. So keep doing what you're doing, great content.

Go listen to the Western Rookie podcast, go download the calendar and Brian, man, thanks for taking time today and chatting with me.

Brian Krebs (51:56.187)
Yeah, thanks for having me on. I'm always happy to talk to you.

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