Shed Hunting the West

On this episode of The Western Rookie Podcast, Brian talks with Weston McArthur about shed hunting the west and how to find more antlers this shed season

Weston McArthur is the host of Rise and Shed, a very popular western shed hunting YouTube page where Weston shows his adventures each year in the outdoors. Hear how Weston has found sheds from working cell phone towers, finding 52 sheds in two days, and some of the biggest and craziest elk sheds he has ever found! Brian and Weston talk about upcoming shed hunting trips and the Rise and Shed giveaway for an all expense paid shed hunt with Weston!

Get entered to win the shed hunt giveaway and follow Weston at the links below:

Website

Instagram

YouTube

[00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of the Western Rookie Podcast. This is your host, Brian Krebs. Dan Matthews is not gonna be here again this week. He is actually down in Texas right now. He is visiting Scout. Their new yellow, I think it's technically a red lab and scout's been at training for a couple of weeks now, or maybe even a couple months now down in Texas with best retrievers.

And it sounds like Scout is doing phenomenal. Everything I've heard from Dan and Sam says the trainers are happy with him. He's weeks ahead of their every other dog in his class. Sounds like they're gonna have a really good dog. It looks like he's training for birds and sheds. So super excited.

Look for some scout content coming outta Dan and Sam from this week, and I'm sure they're really excited to get him back from training completely. But that being aside, it's April, if you're listening to this, I recorded this on March 28th and I just did my Colorado Elk application today. And so we are going to Southern Colorado if we get [00:01:00] drawn.

We did use Go Hunt to find our unit and look at the draw odds, and it looks like we should have a hundred percent chance of draw this year. So our group should be in Southern Colorado chasing bulls with bugles bugle tubes and bows. And we should have great time. We're gonna bring the podcast stuff out so we can do some podcasts from camp.

You can hear from some of the guys I hunt with, which is, it's a different group of guys than Dan. And you've seen Dan hunt with the last couple years in Colorado. So that should be fun for everyone. And that being aside, super excited for today's episode, cuz today Weston MacArthur is gonna call in from Rise and Shed.

Now if you've done any kind of elk shed hunting or you've watched any type of Western shed hunting videos on YouTube, you've surely. Rise and shed Weston MacArthur's channel. The guy finds a ton of sheds and I wanna make an announcement before we kick this video off or this episode off, because Weston reached out to me ahead of time and said, [00:02:00] Hey, just so you know, we're doing a all expenses page.

Shed hunt giveaway with Rise and Shed. So you're gonna get a chance to go shed hunting with Weston himself, maybe a couple friends, and when it's all Sinces paid, they're going to pay for your food, your gas to get out there. It's probably gonna be a camping trip. It's gonna be a great time. Looks like a weekend they just had last month's shed hunt, give.

I don't know where they went, but I'm looking at the video right now and it looks Mr. Cody Murray was the winner and ended up beating Weston and everyone else in the group with the most sheds and some nice browns. I'm looking at a couple six point Browns match set of Browns. Looks like a great time.

So to get entered, super simple, go over to Rise and Shed's website. There'll be a link in the show notes for every $10 you spend@riseandshed.com. You'll get an entry. Now [00:03:00] if you really wanna win, Weston is giving 50 entries for all subscribers to his monthly t-shirt subscription service. So you sign up for the monthly t-shirt subscription.

I think it's 28 bucks. He's got some super cool t-shirts. I'm looking at 'em right now. We have some chuckers on a. Big giant mule shed in the grasslands. We have a pack out heavy shirt coming out with a ton of sheds on a backpack. I saw some. The American Eagle, instead of holding snakes in its closet, he's holding elk sheds.

Lots of cool 100% unique designs. So great. Sign up for that service. You get 50 entries I bet. I bet. The person that wins this shed giveaway is going to be a subscription person. So if you wanna win, sign up for the subscription and if you win, if you are selected, You're also going to get an [00:04:00] awesome prize pack, a canvas cutter bed roll sheep feet, custom orthotics, an all-in company digi scoping system, horn hunter's main beam pack, and a Binal harness, a Borderland Supply trapper pack, a ridge belts duffle bag, and a last light power bundle.

Dude, this is an amazing pack. I'm looking at some of that stuff. I've been wanting to get a canvas cutter for a long time. I have an all-in adapter. I had Nathan from All In on our other podcast, the Two Bucks podcast, and sheep Feed Orthotics. I've actually been looking at getting some of those from my Kenner TrackX just to make him even more comfortable.

So this is a great prize pack and that is why I wanted to let everyone know before we fire this episode off, how to get entered, how to go win, and how to end up shed hunting with Weston MacArthur and Rise and Shed. How cool would that be? So good luck to everyone. I think I'm gonna join. I don't know if I'll win or not, but it looks pretty cool.

So there you have it. I see [00:05:00] Weston just joined in the lobby, so we're gonna get 'em in here and fire this episode off. You're listening to the Western Rookie, the hunting podcast full of tips, tricks and strategies from season western hunters. There are plenty of opportunities out there. We just need to learn how to take on the challenges.

Hunting is completely different up there. I harvested 26 big game animals. You can fool their eyes. We can fool their nose, 300 yards, speck to the road, turned into three miles back the other way. It's always cool seeing new hunters go and harvest animal. I don't know what to expect. If there's anybody I want in the woods with me, it'll be you.

All right guys. Like I said, we got a great guest today, Weston MacArthur from Rise and Shed, and we were just chatting a little bit here before we got going. And you said that you had probably the most unique way I've ever heard of for finding sheds back when you [00:06:00] were working your job before Rise and shed, and tell the listeners how you guys were finding some of those sheds out in the Black Hills.

Not necessarily the Black Hills, but when we were in Idaho one time we were climbing up on the tower and we were in just, straight deer country, a whole bunch of sage, yellow grass. And we were up in the tower, saw something white and we're like, that can't be an antler, could it? And. We were just going back and forth.

We went up the next day, brought some binos and we actually checked it out and it sure enough it was a shed and so we went down and grabbed it and stuff. But we were like 250 feet in the air up on a cell phone tower and glassing down below us and yeah, sure. Shit, we found a shed. That's awesome. I don't know why I thought it was the Black Hills, but Yeah, that is, that's crazy.

So after that first one, were you always tempted to just bring your binos up on every cell tower in Deer Country after that? Oh, absolutely. And what's cool is actually some of my shed spots that I have now are [00:07:00] from when I was working Towers. And we'd just be traveling a lot and seeing animals and stuff.

And I just kept that in the back of my mind of where I saw animals during the winter and stuff, and then just happened to go back there and, we find antlers out there. That is pretty sweet. How were you able to like, add like a day to any of your like, work trips or Hey, we were gonna, we're going to Idaho from Monday through Friday, but I'm gonna stay on Saturday and walk some ground before we head back.

No. So we, we never did that. But there were actually days where it was either too windy or the weather was awful. And my buddy Cameron is honestly the one that got me into shed hunting. I found my first one when I was like 11 or something like that, and we were out hunting deer with my dad and stuff, and I actually didn't even.

Deer and elk and moose actually shed, I thought they just kept growing. And so when I found out on the ground, it blew my mind there for a second. And yeah, we were working towers and my buddy Cameron asked me, he is like, dude, you wanna go find some sheds? I was like, like at [00:08:00] Home Depot what are you talking about, bro?

I didn't even really think about it. And he is no, let's go find some antlers. And we were in Wyoming. We, it was a short day, super windy, and so we decided to just go hike actually outside of our hotel just a couple miles down the road. And we got out, I found actually a small little four point, still have it to this day, maybe a hundred yards outta the truck.

So I lost my mind a little bit and then went like a hundred more yards and there was a brown mule deer set laying literally on top of each other. And from there I was hooked. And then I think we found like 36 sheds that day in a four hour hike. It was nuts out over, back in the golden days.

Random hotel. Yeah, dude. Oh, it was crazy. Oh gosh. Outta sight, right outside. It was in between Buffalo and Gillette, Wyoming. And we just went and slated it. And then we actually kept going back after, we'd get done maybe an hour or two early [00:09:00] and we'd hurry and hustle and go take a quick hike around the tower and stuff.

And yeah, we found mule deer sheds, elk sheds and white to sheds all around the tower. Wow. That's incredible. I've thought of places like that cuz I've driven that highway, that interstate up into the big horns and I've thought that this would be some good places to get some permission land. Oh yeah.

And that makes me wonder, I'm very curious I'm almost hesitant to ask this cuz I, I'm worried the answer is going to make me like, blow my mind, but what's the most antlers you've found in a. 28 in a day, and it's actually out of California out of all places. Went out there with a couple of my buddies from California, and even on the drive out, bro, I was just like, this is the dumbest shit I've ever done.

I'm driving to California to go pick up sheds. I'm like, this is so stupid, I'm not gonna find anything. But I had seen a couple of their posts and they sent me pictures and yeah, dude, we have an awesome spot. You should come out. So I did. Made the trek out there and literally the first [00:10:00] day, found 28 sheds, and then the next day found 24 sheds.

So went home with 52 sheds in two days. I was like, this is insane. A shed a week average in two days. Wow. Is that all deer? Were they like tui elk or No, all deer. All deer. Every single one was mul deer. Okay. Yep. That's incredible. And that was the thing too, like between four of us, we picked up over, I don't, I can't remember, I don't want to make shit up, but I know it was over a hundred, like 30 antlers between four of us in two days.

You picked up almost half that yourself. I know. It was a really good trip for me. But nothing with five points, dude. Not that I can remember, but just nothing with size. Oh, size. It was just everything. Yeah, everything was in between 50 and 60 inches and that was about it. Maybe the biggest one was maybe 70 something inches low seventies.

Yeah. But just a lot of antler. You're lucky Dan's not here, cuz you would've offended him with nothing of size and then said Yeah, there were [00:11:00] only like 50, 60 inches. Cuz he's just getting into shed hunting and I don't think he's found a 60 ture yet. Oh, gotcha. Whitetails different though. Yeah, true.

Like with mule deer, like when you're finding 50, 60 inches of mule deer, it's just Eh, it's a shed, and don't get me wrong, yeah, I love sheds, but when you get like 75 inches and above, that's when it's okay, all I can dig this. I like this antler, yeah. It's mostly my keeper pile, like it, it's mostly 75 inches and above.

Or if it has a little bear character or if it's unique, then it makes it into the keeper pile as well. How big is your keeper pile after, you said five years doing this full-time, I'm sure many years before that. We started shed hunting like religiously, I would say in 2012. And so since then, dude let's put it this way.

I have a 10 by five storage unit and it's full, really paying. It's like keeper shits, dude. It's stupid paying rent on these things. Oh yeah, absolutely. [00:12:00] That's awesome. That's awesome. So how many a year do you like. Are you, I assume you're selling 'em, right? You find this many, you can't keep 'em all, like you said, so are you selling 'em?

Yeah. Yeah, so I sell some, I have some that I make for dog chew on my website, and then I do have a very large keeper collection just because either it's unique or it's big or it's a certain memory tied to the antler or who I was with or how it happened. There's some stupid reasons why I keep sheds, but for the most part it's just, I just love 'em.

They're all unique, and it is even hard for me to sell 'em at times just because it's man, I'm never gonna find something like that again, or that particular antler again. I don't know. It's weird that way. Oh, I'm right there with you. There's probably, like I showed you, I think there's 140 whitetail sheds on this wall behind me in my office.

I haven't sold a single ler Oh. Yet. And I don't know if I could, oh, I don't [00:13:00] know. I'm not to the point yet where I need to cuz of the space. So I'm safe for a little bit here. But what there hopefully, God willing, there comes a day where I'm gonna have to be like, okay, what am I gonna do with these?

Cuz they're starting to get in the way. And I don't know if I could sell 'em, man. I feel like, there's not a lot of money in the whitetail shed game. Really? You'd have to find so many No. To add the poundage to really what are you gonna get? Maybe a tank of gas?

Maybe I would just bring them to the farm. Yeah. You can get you a little bit more than that. Pounded, so the biggest shed on that wall barely cracks. Two pounds. These are hammered eight point sheds, but they just don't weigh, yeah. So you're right. They would add up. They would add up.

But I'm saying like, oh yeah. For forgiving them away. Yeah. Like my chalk pile of deer sheds one year, I had over 600 pounds of chalk, deer, antler. It was stupid. And but that's that's a good grip of change. Like 3, 2, 3, 4 bucks a pound for chalk for deer. I think it was like a dollar 50.

Okay. [00:14:00] But still like bucks. That's just chalk. Yeah. Yeah. So I was just like, all right, that goes away. That's up, dude. I keep everything. You're right. That does go, that does get you, a thousand dollars, that's five more than five, depending on what kind of vehicle. That's seven tanks of gas.

Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, it adds up. I feel like maybe that's seven more trips to find more. Yeah. Can you ever get it to like cash flow? I haven't got that good at it, let's put it that way. Yeah, dude, that's a lot of sheds. It is, and I still correct. Obviously this is my full-time gig, but I still play dad, still play husband and all that stuff and so I need to make sure I'm home taking care of the family and doing all that.

And plus I'm a one man show. Like I don't have a camera guy or an editor or anything. Yeah. I'm literally everything. Like I'm the editor, I'm the camera guy, I'm the marketing guy, I'm the everything. So it's a lot. Yeah. Yeah. You can only be out so many days and it's like a, even just going up more days might not help.

It [00:15:00] might even hurt if you're trying to like cash flow your gas with selling your takeaway pile because if you're not like getting in the zone, you're just adding gas and not paying for it. Exactly. Interesting. Interesting. Yeah, I don't know. I think I'd bring. Before I got to that point, I would hope that the money just absolutely didn't matter and I would just bring them out to the farm and maybe do like a boneyard out at our farm.

Hell yeah. So that way I always know they're there. Like I've heard Ryan Carter talk about that with some of his bowls that he's found dead in Utah and he's worried, like if he calls 'em in the Utah game and fish, we'll just take it, not give it to him. They're like, oh yeah, thanks for letting us know.

We'll bring it back to headquarters. And so he just leaves him there. So he's I know where that bull is. I can go see him and visit him anytime. Yeah. So I don't know. It'd be a tough one. It really would be. Because you don't want to end up like that guy, you've seen that guy in Montana that has like an old barn shed full of antlers.

It's like 19,000. Yeah. With 70,000 antlers or something. Yeah. Yeah. It's, I don't know if you want to be that. I don't know. But then I guess at the [00:16:00] end of the day, if you did want to do something with it that's, for your family, like just the whole thing, boom, there you go. Go have some fun or something like that.

Yeah. I don't know. True. Yeah. That would be, I'd have a hard time just doing that and just be like, yeah, I saved him for this long. See you later. Yeah. Now sell 'em. Yeah. That would be tough. Yeah. You'd have to like, I would hope that the family would just, keep it going and just keep it going. Come and preserve it or do something really cool.

Like a second set of arches in Jackson. Yeah. Do something cool donated by the MacArthur family. There you go. Yeah. Cool, cool. And so this is I'm sure you've been out and you've been finding some, but we're really like on the front edge of your guys' Western shed season. Absolutely. Yeah. You guys are just getting into it. And plus here in Utah there's a closure dude. Yeah. So we can't even find sheds yet until May 1st. Hey, there's even surrounding states that have the closure, but I've heard you can find them. You just can't pick 'em up. [00:17:00] No. They were even saying that you can't look for 'em.

Yeah. Like it's illegal to look for him. But how do you enforce that? I'm out here looking for the yellow chested warbler dude. Like I'm not shed hunting. Exactly. Yeah. No it is one of those rules where I think at a base level, everyone knows that we don't want to be like killing elk or deer by pushing 'em.

Nobody wants that. Nobody, even if you're making money off of these antlers, you don't want that. But also at the same time, it's like how you make a rule, but how are we gonna enforce it? And what bothers me about a rule like that is I will follow the rule, but I know others won't. And that's what bothers me.

Yeah. Yeah. So absolutely. I don't know. No, that's the game you play. Like obviously it hurts the honest person, but at the end of the day us I guess as influencers, as people like to call it definitely gives us more of a bad rap, I feel. And people assume that we're the ones out pushing the animals and doing all that stuff.

I'm gonna [00:18:00] tell you right now, my reputation is everything that I have, that's the last thing I'm gonna be doing, is pushing animals and getting in trouble. Yeah. Especially I feel that way for a lot of the people on here that are influencers on social media platforms and stuff. It's like those are not gonna be the people that are out doing dumb stuff.

Are there a select few? Absolutely. But I feel for the majority, I feel we're trying to be the most respectful in trying to help these people know the guidelines and the rules and stuff like that. I don't know. It's interesting. Yeah, I think in all my travels I've maybe come across one, one account where I was like, I just don't know if I'm vibing with this person's style.

Like ethics and morals. Yeah. And, but one out of hundreds every other person I interact with that's doing like full-time, even shed hunting specific, some of the nicest people I've ever met, like great friends all around. And oh, absolutely. Yeah. No, I think it, I think you're right. You hit it around the nail, like [00:19:00] we're the ones that are really trying the best to preserve the resource and do it the right way.

Cuz it's like your livelihood. You if elk die off, like you're gonna be looking for another job, you gotta, you pretty much, you are like very invested in keeping this herd healthy. Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That is awesome. So what are some of your favorite states? Because you did mention you used to travel, you did some stuff in Idaho, Wyoming, when you were working, and then California.

You live in Utah, where if you could only pick one state and one species to find antlers for the rest of your life, what would the setup be? Just a depressed thinking about it. I don't wanna limit myself. That's hard. Yeah. It's hard to say, but my favorite place to go ever is Nevada.

But if I had to pick just one state, one species, it'd probably be New Mexico Elk. Okay. Any reason that's and I. Dude, I honestly [00:20:00] feel like that they don't have the numbers right. In New Mexico because it's so thick and they hide so well and all that thick stuff. I don't feel they have a good grasp of how many elk are actually in the state of New Mexico.

That could be just my own personal opinion. Obviously it is my own personal opinion, but there are just so many places that I've been to in New Mexico that not a lot of people have been, and we have had some unreal trips. Like in one place in particular, we pulled out like over 400 elk sheds in four trips.

Oh my gosh. Yeah. Wow. It's stupid town. Wow. We've just had really good luck in New Mexico. So I guess to answer that question, New Mexico elk, that makes me feel really good because in exactly two days, or just, sorry, two weeks. I'm gonna be heading to Kansas City. I'm gonna pick up a buddy.

We're gonna head out to Durango, meet up with Steven Walker. I don't know if you've met Steven Walker. He was a podcast [00:21:00] guest, finds a lot of antlers. And we're gonna New Mexico for two days. We're gonna, we're gonna walk and then we're gonna go to Arizona for two days and meet up with another person that Steven's friends with.

And we're gonna walk Arizona for two days. Hell yeah. So when you said New Mexico Elk, I'm like, Hey, we're onto something. Yeah. I actually just got back this past weekend from New Mexico, and then the weekend before that was Arizona. I saw your, I saw a story, obviously, I don't know when you took the picture, but it was a stack of four or five browns.

And I was like, that was this past weekend. It's I'm just sitting here like It's coming. Yep. It's coming. Yep. Yeah. That's exciting. We saw quite a few shed bulls, but then there were still a ton still packing. So I think you guys are gonna hit it. Just money time. Yeah. Those more mature bulls have definitely dropped, but very like a good handful of 300 glass bowls are still packing.

Dude I have found, I don't know if you saw it, I have two elk sheds. They're both hard white. I did see that [00:22:00] one. It's a five point rag horn. I found 'em both archery elk hunting in the fall, so I've never really found an elk shed like intending for sheds. And I've never found a brown elk. I've never found like a good meal deer either.

I've found a couple fresh sheds in South Dakota, but all two year old or one year old. So my only goal for the whole trip, no rattlesnake encounters with the dog. I don't think you will. That's good. He is a shed dog, so he's gonna be out there quartering and casting and picking up sheds.

He's picked up almost every one of these whitetail sheds. That's awesome. I usually find them first cuz just the like open country, like I can see 'em farther away. Yeah. So no rattlesnakes would be great. And then a brown elk and a brown deer. If it was a four point brown and a six point brown trips made, like I would be so happy.

Hell yeah. That's very attainable. You can definitely do that. Yeah. I don't wanna set the bar too high. Like I don't, I'm not out here looking for 52 in two days. We'll [00:23:00] see. We'll see. I don't know, I'm a little bit worried that my pack isn't the best pack for shed hunting. It's a mystery ranch Metcalf.

So it, it can do it, but as long as it has a frame, you'll be all right. It doesn't have a, it has, what is it? Like carbon fiber rods with a, it's got like a soft canvas. Shelf that so like the bag bumps out and you would put the quarter like in between your carbon robber carbon fiber rods, and then your bag, and then it like squishes it in.

And it's got a weight, like a waist belt. Yeah. I don't, I've seen some pictures or some videos of some dudes carrying some loads out and I'm like, eh, I don't think this pack's meant for that. I don't think it's the 20 elk pack you see. Yeah, it could do the weight. I just think it's not made to stack 'em in there like that.

I think you would want more of an open frame and just like stack 'em left sides, right sides tape 'em up and then. Tie 'em in, but we'll see. We'll, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Yep, there you go. But then what I wanna do, what's [00:24:00] that? Go ahead. Oh, go ahead. I was just gonna ask you like, are you guys going to more steep country or just more flat?

Do you know? I was told a little of everything. I was told we're gonna be in some sage country in New Mexico, but then when we get to Arizona it could be like really anything. Gotcha. Yeah. All I'm gonna say is bring your binos and glass your ass off. Yeah, that's what Steven said. He just, he found a match set today through his binos.

And he sent us a picture of them. It was, I don't know how far out it was. It looked like a long ways, but, so I've got Binos. We were also wondering about, do you guys, how often do you guys pull out a. Depends on the country. In some spots I bring a spotter everywhere I go, but then there's other spots that you're, you don't necessarily need 'em.

Like this past weekend we didn't need it in the country that we were hiking in. It's just way too thick and not really any high points to really glass to use a spotter in that way. I was thinking it'd [00:25:00] probably be worth bringing it out there at least. And then just see if you need it. Especially if there's like a great spot to park the truck, run outta half mile, sit on a knob glass like the entire country and then put it away and start walking.

Yep. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Or if you see animals or something like that. Hurrying bus out the spotter, throw the all in system on it and film. Yeah. Dude, I had all in Get this Chance Encounter. I started my other entrepreneur podcast, the two Bucks podcast for anyone listening. Head over there.

Guest number two, I reached out to the spotting scope company on, I saw on TikTok. I actually saw Ben and Eric. Doing a video with it and I'm like, oh, that looks like a cool invention. I'll have 'em on and sure enough, it's all in. I had Nate on the podcast, like one of the greatest people. Oh, that's awesome.

Super connected. As soon as the show ended, he like put me and Ben in a group chat. He's Ben, you need to get on a podcast with this guy. It's great. He wants to hear your story about punching out for the last time and so then I ordered the system and everything. Yeah, it's the, it's hands [00:26:00] down the best spotting scope accessor I've ever bought.

Absolutely. So a hundred percent agree. Yeah. Love that thing. I brought it into my like deer stand, like my whitetailed deer stand this fall and I was filming Whitetails with it. Oh hell yeah. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. So I'm super excited. No, that's a good dude. Yeah. I'm gonna bring Brenda that out.

We've got our girl pros. I'm not doing I don't really do a YouTube channel, but I do wanna start gaining experience cause I think that's gonna be something I'm going to want to do one day. Absolutely. And you put all this podcast stuff on a YouTube channel and you can film it and, you get all that content too.

Yeah. Yeah. I've been doing shorts on YouTube from the podcasts and stuff, so that's been fun. But yeah, dude, I'm so jacked. I've done all kinds of whitetail shed hunts and I've tried to do a couple elk. I had a once in a lifetime tag in new North Dakota. I don't know if you could see that down there, but oh yeah.

Yeah. That looks like a stellar bull, bro. Dude, it's a, he is a big, he's 3 54. Oh, that's a stud. Yeah. Yeah. He's a big, he's a big [00:27:00] one. He's in the That's awesome. If you, if that door was open, he's like down the hall in the living room and he's, you know the window, like when you're trying to tell people like how to call archery elk and you're talking about this window and they just are like right over their head.

It's a perfect example. He's just peeking his head into this hallway window the way I have 'em mounted Nice. In a pedestal. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. And then I was like, man, there's giant bulls in this unit. I just shot one last fall. Let's come out in the spring and try to find some giant elk sheds.

We walked 30 miles and found one chaker mule deer fork. That usually happens. Yeah. Yeah, that'll happen for sure. So I gave up on that spot. Didn't give up on elk sheds. So I'm super excited for this trip coming up. Me and the co-host that's not here tonight are gonna both be out there. That's the buddy I'm picking up in KC and so we're camping.

We're gonna do, I think we're gonna do base camp, not spike camp. That's how we usually do it. Just. Park the trucks and basically hike from the trucks. Or if you need to drive around a couple little places [00:28:00] do it that way. But for the most part, that's how we do our shed hunts is base camp is just at the trucks.

Okay. Cuz I was worried, cuz I've been seeing, I'm sure you've seen like Eric or Eric Chester's videos, it seems like lately his favorite trick is to spike in like back country. Yep. And he's pulling a lot of sheds and I'm like, I'm not set up for that. I don't know. Hopefully that's not what you have to do to find sheds.

No, absolutely not. Eric's just a machine. Yeah he's an animal. I've been on a couple of those backpack country trips with him and yeah, he's an animal. So I gotta ask you, what is it about tuna packets that every shed hunter's just ate up with? Because everybody I talk to is I'll just do tuna packets for lunch.

And I first saw it on Eric's channel and I'm like, Okay. That's just Eric. He's obviously like a gym junkie as well. Works out I'm sure that's just part of his meal plan. Now. Everyone I talk to is doing tuna packets. I am not that person. Okay. I hate tuna fish, dude. Me too. Yeah. I [00:29:00] hate it. I can't stand tuna.

That's not going to my pack. Yeah. I don't like the smell of it. It's just not happening. It's not going in my pack. I'm all about the pop-tarts and just the fat kid snacks. Fat kid snacks. That's what I'm about. Yep. Fat kid snacks. Yeah. Cuz like Steven was like the guy we're going with. He's yeah, we usually wake up, make a breakfast and then, I don't know, I just don't eat lunch.

And then we will have a good dinner and I'm like, dude, my body's not made to do 15 miles and not eat lunch. I'm a big dude. You'll be all right. I'll Why elcon? We archery elcon every year. Like I know what I need. And I'm saying it's not nothing. I'm gonna be making sandwiches and putting 'em in the pack cause Oh yeah.

I'm a, I'm an eater. Just bring some summer sausage, some cheese and crackers. You can munch on that all day. Oh dude, I'm a full sandwich man. Good. Full sandwich. Yeah, absolutely. There you go. I used to make it the night before. Be prepared. Yeah. Oh yeah. I like food. I'm a big kid. I'm like 6 2, 2 80.

Oh, damn. That kind of goes to the gym. Like I, I [00:30:00] go to the gym a lot. I don't necessarily look like I go to the gym a lot. It's because you're eating habits that you go to the gym? Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much. The only reason I go to the gym is cuz I archery Al Hunt every year. Fair enough. That's the only reason.

That's good excuse. But yeah, so I'm like, I'm gonna be eating lunch Steve. I'm not doing, no, I'm not doing the tuna fish packets you talked about and I'm not doing no lunch, so I was just, but do you know, is it just me or do a lot of western shed hunters do the tuna packet. No, they definitely do. Cuz I even have friends that do the tuna fish stuff and every time they pull it out, you want some.

Absolutely not. I don't, that's so gross to me. I have to feel or even it's the oysters dude. Like they love the oysters out here and stuff too. Oh yeah, absolutely. The little kipper snacks and all that stuff, dude, they just open it up. Knife, boom. Done. You guys are like the farthest away from the oysters.

How do you dude, I don't know. I don't do it, but I see all my [00:31:00] other friends do it. Okay. If all, I think when we ever hook up on a shed hunt, you and I will have like our own snack system. We'll be like trade, like good snacks, like jerky and snack sticks and summer sausage and you guys can go have your tuna.

Man I'm not happy that I'm down with that. That's all right. I really do feel like Eric, cuz he was on the earlier side of like outdoor YouTube or like some other influencer had to be like the source of all these people doing the tuna fish packet. Yeah I'd feel that, and I'm sure pretty much Brady Miller with the Go Hunt.

I'm pretty sure he does some tuna fish and stuff like that too. Yeah. Unless there's like signs to be light all the time. Yeah. Unless something like that must be I don't, I'm with you. I'm with you a hundred percent. I'm with you. A hundred percent. So it sounds like you're doing base camps just like us.

We're gonna have a wall tent. I'm bringing the Blackstone. We're gonna, it's gonna be like bougie camping. We're gonna glam for Oh yeah. Lack of a better word. Yeah. Bringing, I'm gonna smoke a, there's nothing wrong with that. [00:32:00] I'm gonna smoke a pork butt before we head out and shred it and have smoked pork barbecues.

Oh yeah. Yeah. So we're going to eat good. We got a shed dog. I'm a little, he, my dog Grizz was trained on elk sheds and mul deer sheds originally, but have not found any in the wild. And he is five years old, so I'm really curious to see what he does cuz he's both site trained and scent trained.

And I watched him pick actually this one here, he picked this one out of a snowbank earlier this year. Like it was mo 90% covered. Really? Yeah. Yeah. He tank. He must have smelled it. I think the webcam's making it look a little bigger than it is from my end. It's like a 63 inch whitetail that's a stud.

Yeah. So I'm really curious cuz obviously Elk have way more scent than a whitetail, so I'm curious how he does on a fresh elk shed. It'll be interesting. Yeah. I'm sure he's big [00:33:00] enough to pull, to carry him back. He is like a 95. That was gonna be my, that was gonna be my next question is if he can actually handle the weight in carrying it back to you.

Does he like alert you and let you know? No, he just picks him up when he is found him. Oh really? Yeah, he's trying to just pick him up and bring him back at any time. Gotcha. So he'll be running around and be like, stop on a dime, spin around, pick it up, run back to me. Sometimes he d dollies. Gotcha. But yeah, he's like a long lanky lap, so he's 90 pounds.

He's a big bone one, but he's not fat. He will be tired by the end of our trip. He will probably like the last day I might not bring him but he may have some sore paws out there. Yeah, dude, it's not that much better up here. Cuz we get ice and so he is breaking through ice for six miles, like snow ice on top of the, I'm talking about the lava rock.

Oh, I'm thinking lava rock and stuff. Yeah. Depending on where you guys are, he might just have some sore paws after hiking, just with that stuff. For how hot it is? [00:34:00] No, like just scratching up his paws. Okay. I do, I rock. That's a good point. I'll bring his, I have boots for him. And I'll bring those boots from Oh, there you go.

Yeah. Done. Yeah because he used to cut his paws so bad on like ice, like he breaks through the ice crust layer and just time he'll just rip his paws up that way. Yeah. We'll see, I mean I might not, shed hunt 'em every day, but I'm very interested he's, I think if he learns to pick 'em up in the middle, he'll do Okay.

If he tries to pick up the fifth and that ain't gonna go very well. No. Dragging that is gonna be rough. Yeah. Yeah. We'll see. I want to keep an eye on him too though, just cuz like we're in a new country. I don't wanna let him run quite as far as I do up here. I'd be careful with Javelinas with him.

Javelinas man. You guys got all kinds of shit to worry about. Oh yeah, there's some and cactus like dude, Arizona is the worst place as far as things that want to kill you and grab you and poke you and stab you. [00:35:00] Arizona's the worst. Yeah, I don't know. We had 'em in the Badlands in North Dakota and they had cactuses up there.

Gotcha. And so I don't know how he'll deal with cactus to be honest. I'll have to keep a close eye on him. I'm sure he'll get a couple. Yeah. He'll get a couple, but he'll be all right. Yeah. Other people bring dogs out, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Okay. I just don't wanna I don't wanna go with a dog and then come home without a dog, I'm trying, it's like rattlesnakes. Avelina. What do the javelinas do to a dog? Oh, dude. They just have those tuss on the side of their mouth and they're just razor sharp and it'll mess a dog up. It'll mess anything up. Really? Are they aggressive? Yeah, for sure. So every time I've been around Alina, it hasn't been really aggressive except for one time, and this was the past year just in January, I was filming Hunt Wars in Mexico and I was literally taking a shit, and one charged me as I was doing my business.

What? Yeah. Yeah. It was wild. No way. Halina charged you in the [00:36:00] middle of number two. Yeah, so I'm literally squatting and I'm hearing, this noise coming up at me and I'm just like, I was getting scared though too because of pants down, no weapon or anything like that. And just all of a sudden it like appears out of the brush and I just went, Hey, get outta here.

And he literally shot right at me and dude like within this close to me, just ran right by my leg. I bet that helped. If he would've tagged me with one of his tuss, oh dude, they would've opened me right up. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I don't know man. Now I'm wondering if I need to bring my side arm with me out there.

I would a hundred percent and plus Bears and stuff. Depending on where you go into Mexico, we see a lot of bears. Oh, interesting. I'm definitely bringing the side arm after all this stuff. Rattlesnakes have alina's. Yeah. Bears. I'm gonna have to bring the, I'm gonna have to bring the 10 mills. Let instead, I'm just saying, I usually pack [00:37:00] heat just for, some crazies, some people, yeah, like I'm not really that scared of animals or anything like that.

It's just if some people want to get weird, that's the only reason why I like to have it. Oh, I will sink a full clip into a rattlesnake. I am not about those danger noodles. Yeah, no they're not fun. I'm still excited. I'm still super excited hopefully to have Linas take one, look at Grizz and be like, I don't wanna mess with that thing.

That's a wolf ho. Hopefully, and I hope he doesn't run after them though too. You'd probably just look at me like, where did you bring me? And I don't wanna discourage you, it's a blast out there. I just wanted you to be prepared and know what you're walking into, though, at the same time. Yeah, no, that's for sure.

I've been asking all kinds of questions like, what do we need to bring? I wanna make it a thing. I wanna make it a reoccurring thing to go out west and do a one western shed onto year. I know. It's I'm not gonna move to Utah just for shed hunting, and especially since my, yeah, my wife's a pharmacist here at the [00:38:00] hospital, so if I can just get out west for one week a year and just, be out there I, you probably don't know how it is because you live there, you're used to it, you're acclimated, but when you're a flatlander just being in the mountains, there's just something about it.

I actually sold DirecTV back in the day in, in, in Illinois Arkansas, Missouri. So I was back there and dude, I would get lost back there because the mountains, you can actually tell your direction. Everything out there was just so thick and green and no mountains or whatsoever. I couldn't tell really which way I was going if the sun wasn't, setting or coming up.

I had no idea where I was. And so yes, I know what that feels like because I did miss the mountains a lot. Yeah. Yeah. There's just something about like even if we go out there once a year and we don't even find that many sheds, it's still worth it just to be out there and hiking. And so I wanna do it every year.

I have a pretty strong option for next year. I recently found out I have a long lost cousin that's an [00:39:00] outfitter in Montana, and he is like the exact same age as me and love shed hunting. And so I'm like, Hey, Branson, let's like meet up and do a shed hunt next year together. So I had him on the podcast was great guy.

But yeah, it's like those are the kind of long last cousins you wanna find. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Shit, dude, you can hit me up and I can take you out too. Yeah, that's easy. I heard you're, I think it's you. I don't want to, I don't want to look stupid if it's wrong, but I have some friends, Tyler and Jenny Besser from Behind the Blind tv, and I, dude, I wanted to ask you about that.

Okay. I seriously did. They're coming out next week to Wyoming with me. Really? Yeah. So did you, how did you know that? I knew. No, because you said you were from Minnesota. Oh. And so I was like, oh, Tyler and Jenny are from Minnesota. I wonder if he knows behind the blank. There's a little, there's a couple more people here in Minnesota than there is in Wyoming, just so you know.

Yeah, there's, I do know those two, but I don't know everyone. Yeah, no, I got you. I had them on my [00:40:00] first podcast. They're coming on actually this podcast soon to talk about Archery Antelope. We had somebody right in that wanted to hear more about Archery Antelope. Oh, that's awesome. So I'm trying to find someone that's not just oh, I'll tell you about archery antelope.

Get yourself a blind and you sit in it all day long, every day until you shoot one, because that's like kind of boring. No, I get you Tyler and Jenny Dubak, I think more spot in stock, which is gonna be exciting to talk about. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. No. And I actually met them. At the Total Archery Challenge.

That's how I met them. Which one? Bozeman. And then we just cut Montana. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. I need to get out to those. I need to get to more of those events cuz you meet like everyone that you wanna meet. Oh yeah, absolutely. It's good to just network and socialize with like-minded people. It's a good time out there.

Yeah. You guys go beat it up in Wyoming. I've actually found a fair amount of sheds in Wyoming doing antelope punts. Oh hell yeah. I stepped on what would've been my first and only four point meal deer. She. As I was trying to climb up out of this cut [00:41:00] and guide my nephew, he's 12 on his first meal, deer.

He had shot it, wounded it. I could tell it wasn't the greatest shot. We were gonna have to do some work, and so I'm like working on trying to get up and over and cut him off as he is limping away. And I just take off up this cut like, yep, we can make it start crawling up at. And my nephew goes, oh, hey look.

And he pulls a four point mule deer shed outta my boot track fresh, too brown. Awesome. Yeah. I was like, sweet. Nice. That's perfect. Of course he found my dream shed as I'm trying to find did he get the buck though? Yeah, so we did. We cut him off. It's snowing, like fogging storms rolling in it's October, right?

Kind of blizzardy fog conditions. His scope's fogging up. I'm wiping it off for him. Helping him. He's signing it up. Yeah, I got him. I think I'm on him. Okay. Shoot him. Boom. Second shot. Drills him. I think he did a third shot too, cuz he's trying to stand up again. Drill them again, put 'em down. I don't know what ha happened on the first shot.

The deer I think [00:42:00] was like dropped to take a leak and then he shot like just bad timing and kind of must it up or no, it was the other way. It was taken a leak and he is can I shoot it? And I'm like, I would wait until he stands up. And I think his gun just surprised him as he was like on it and he hit him in the leg or something.

But yeah, we got him, we got his first deer. Get this, the kid was Oh yeah. Bean stock skinny. You know that some 13 year old boys just have, they're just skin and bones. Oh yeah. He's one of them. He was like short. Like they're not tall yet. I don't know. I'm bad at judging cuz I've been six two for a while.

He's probably five two at the time. Five two, a hundred pounds. He packed out half of his meal. Dear Buck. The head one rear one front and the sh in a school bag. He didn't even have a real pack. He had a school bag. Whoa. He had no hip. He had, I don't think he had any hip belt. And he, I was like, he's I'm like, how much of this do you wanna carry?

And he goes, I'll do my half. And so we loaded him up with half, I think I took the head. But yeah. And he just marched it right back to the truck. A straight mile. We got back to [00:43:00] the truck in 14 minutes. Hell yeah. Yeah. Little just a little athlete. Yearn it. Yeah. Yeah. I like it. Just a little athlete.

So that was pretty cool to see like him just put it on a book bag and just start huffing it, oh yeah. Yeah. No that's been fun. I gotta ask you though, so you're doing this full-time, but shed season really, I mean you guys get a later start with your snow pack and some of the closures.

But are you pretty much wrapped up in June? You're not shed hunting still in July, are you? No I actually, I'll still do some trips in June, but yeah, July, it's more like fishing and I do some shore fishing. I'm that guy. Okay. And then yeah, and then once August comes around it's, scouting and getting ready to find some mule deer and elk and whatever we're hunting that year.

But yeah, for the most part it just wraps up at the end of May. Okay. So end of May. So then that was my next question is what are you doing to fulfill your your full-time job through the summer and the [00:44:00] fall and the winter when, because it's rise and shed. So it's obviously very centered on the shed hunting side of it.

I assume everything else just falls under that same umbrella. Absolutely. And so I have a lot of different eggs and different baskets. So I have my website obviously sell my merch there, shirts, hats, belts, dog shoes, stickers, the whole shebang. And then I have my social media platforms that I earn some money off of.

And then I actually build and repair antlers. If have cracked crappy chalky antlers, I can bring 'em back to life and make 'em look nice again. And then I also do some, freelance work. I also work with hunt wars. They, pay me to go film and edit and stuff for them.

And then I've just, taken odd jobs from other people like that, want some photos done or some other film work or, whatever I can, do to make a buck. I'm usually all about it, but [00:45:00] it's mostly been. Outdoor type stuff, especially the last two years I'd say. I haven't really done anything outside of the outdoor industry besides, what I'm doing now for the last two years.

Oh dude, that's awesome. Like good for you. That's I think a lot of our dreams is to just hustle and grind, but in the outdoor space and yeah, we got paid to do this promo and I'm doing this, I got this brand deal and yeah. I think that would be a lot of people's dreams really. Are you in your peak seasons, right?

Probably shed seasons probably. Is it shed season, the peak season? How many videos per week? Absolutely. Would that look like for you? Is it like one a week or are you doing more so as of right now, it's only one a week. Like I said, we have the closure and stuff, and so I've only honestly been out on three different trips, and right now I'm actually editing our third trip, which was actually my shed hunt giveaway trip.

And yeah, it's been a little slow right now, but dude, so as soon as may hits, it's going to [00:46:00] be red. Ridiculous. My month of May is gonna be so busy traveling and shed hunting. It's stupid. I'm gonna be traveling from Utah to Nevada, to Colorado to Wyoming, probably back down to Arizona and New Mexico.

Dude it's gonna be stupid. Come May. Yeah. And so I'll have a lot more content then and whatnot. That's awesome, dude. I'm excited for it. I was talking to Tyler about it, and I was, he's yeah, we're going out with Wes. And I was like, I thought Wyoming was closed until May 1st.

You better ask him about that. And he's I don't know. He's told me we could come. And I'm like I know for sure Jackson Hole does the whole closure and the Boy Scout thing, and then the rally. And I'm like, man, I thought the rest of the state too, but maybe I was just looking at certain like wintering zones, like winter ranges.

Yeah. So it's split in half. The eastern side of the state is actually open to shed hunting. And so the more season, more popular spots, which are, yeah. And then the more popular spots like Jackson Hole and stuff like that on the Western side, that's all closed down [00:47:00] until the date Until May 1st. Yeah. Yeah, that would be, that's pretty cool.

And so have you ever hunted the Jackson Hole hunt? I have never done that. And honestly, that doesn't even pique my interest to go run after sheds and have a, just a battle between hundreds of thousands of people. It's just not my thing. I just I never have any interest in going running after sheds.

It just, I like to take my time. I like to, honestly, just being out there by myself and or with my crew that came out with us and I just love my time out there. That's, like my therapy, is shed hunting. I don't like to have competition or anything like that, and I don't feel it's a competition.

And I've never felt like anybody in this outdoor space is competition. Like we're all just out here doing what we love and enjoying God's country and stuff. And yeah, Jackson doesn't even appeal to me whatsoever. Yeah, dude, I'm right there with [00:48:00] you, man. I don't like running at all. Much less against somebody else that's probably in better shape.

I tell everyone that I hunt with, if you see me running, there's either gold or grizzly bears and you don't wanna wait to find out, which, just follow. Fair enough. Yeah. I like it. And I've never, I've what appeals to me about Jackson from a Flatlander is I just wanna find elk sheds and everyone knows there's elk sheds at Jackson.

And so that part of it's oh, if I go there, like at least I know I'm going to the right spot. But it's man, I'm gonna be putting up against all these people and horses and outfitters that have been doing it for decades and they know where to go and they got all the, it's like I probably still wouldn't find an elk shed there.

I'd probably be better off going and finding my own spot or calling up my buddy Wes and say, Hey, I'll bring the food in the griddle if we go together. So Fair enough. Yeah. I don't, dunno if, now Wyoming changed it. I don't know if you saw, but Wyoming changed it for next year. You have to wait seven days to even go into the state of Wyoming if you're a non-resident.

I did see that. Yeah, their whole seven day non-resident thing, [00:49:00] and I don't know how I feel about all these different rules and it's not even just shed hunting like Montana's doing the whole two points if you go with an outfitter. And why? I just saw Wyoming is raising their special tag drop prices to $2,000 for an elk tag.

Man, it just makes me feel like very queasy about the future of western hunting, especially from a flatlander. But I've been tossing around an idea in my head and you can just hang up if you think it's a bad idea. But I've been wondering. Just like a, not a tag, but maybe just like a stamp to collect antlers.

Just a little like 30 bucks to at least so you're not doing like a non-consumptive use the bird watchers, they hardly pay for anything, right? Like literally almost nothing. No, I get you Bikers, hikers, like all these people can use our same resource in a way. They're not taking an elk off the landscape, but they're affecting the landscape without any that's why I'm thinking I don't think I'd be opposed to that.

If it would help mitigate some of this stuff, like the [00:50:00] whole u Utah shed closure or the. The Wyoming non-resident delay and all this like winter range protection and whatever it is. It's I don't think I would be opposed to that. I don't think I'd be opposed to paying $30 per state to, to be able to go collect antlers.

I wouldn't really want a bag limit. Or a possession limit. But I wouldn't be opposed. What do you think about an idea like that? I wouldn't be opposed to it. And obviously if it goes back to, a good cause and helps conservation and stuff like that I'm all for it. But at the same time too, I would be pissed with a bag limit or something like that.

Oh yeah. I think that's, I think that would be bullshit. I am not down with that. Absolutely not. But yeah, to pay a little fee to go find sheds, I'm all about it. I'm okay with that. And even with these closures, I'm for the closures because in Northern Utah, dude, our herds are hurting so bad up there.

Like deer and elk are dying just right off the road cuz they [00:51:00] have nowhere to feed and stuff. And so I'm okay with shed closures, but it also has to make sense though too. And I feel like with, especially Utah, that they're saying even on private land, you cannot pick up shed and you can't. I just, I can't fathom like telling somebody that they can't pick up an antler off their own property and telling them what they can do on their own property.

I don't feel right about that. Oh no at all. No man. That is destined for legal battle. See, I don't even know how that would hold up in court though, either. If somebody reared me off, right? If I was a rancher and a bull dropped on my farm and it's it's my ranch. I know if that bull's there or not.

He's probably not like he's he dropped and he moved off like he's not there anymore. I'm gonna go over there and pick that up. I don't care what you say, it's my land. As soon as that antler hit the ground, that's my antler. Yeah. That's how I feel about it anyway. And I feel like there's gonna be [00:52:00] some rancher that's try me, let's go.

Like I Oh, absolutely. A hundred percent. And, but they would even have to move it out of the way for their tractors to come through, unless they want flat tires and all that stuff. So what do you expect them to do? Yeah, exactly. Like you, you pick, it's just silly. The private land one is bonkers. I get I'm, I think I'm right on.

I'm right with you. Step for, step on this whole thing. Obviously we gotta save the animals. It's been a hard winter. Everyone gets that. There would be people that would probably push it a little too far if if there was no action taken. But yeah, that whole private land one that's wild.

Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, I would just even. I was just gonna say, even just picking on shed hunters, obviously there are a couple bad eggs that do some dumb shit, but that's just people in general. Yeah, and I feel like go catch the people that are actually harassing the wildlife and being a nuisance.

Let us just do our own thing if we're being respectful and just staying back and not [00:53:00] pushing animals and doing all that stuff, let us just do our thing. But I feel like shed, hunters just got attacked there for the first little bit of February and March. It was interesting, everything that was being said and going around.

Yeah, it's, it is interesting and it's usually attacked from people. It's like criticism, right? You're never criticized by someone farther down your own path, right? It's always from people in your rear view mirror or it's always from people that just don't do it. They don't get it. They live in New York and they're like, oh, you're killing the elk.

And it's no, we're not. We're really not. And I'm sure there's people post on TikTok. Go ahead. Who, go ahead. I was gonna say, I can't even post on TikTok about sheds without people like that. Calling in my posts and just saying that it's violent and stuff, it's like none of these animals were hurt.

Like I didn't even actually see a couple of animals on some of these days when I picked up certain sheds. And yeah, I don't know. I feel some things have gotten a little soft for my taste to catch my drift. [00:54:00] Yeah. Yeah. I get you, man. I got in a fight with a vegan long ago on TikTok, and I actually had turned their username into a discount code on my website for beard oil, and I sold like 90 orders in four days.

That's awesome. Yeah, it was. It went, I thought one person might use it because it was funny and it just went viral and I was like bing, bing on my Shopify account. And it was great. Yeah. But yeah, I would want, I would I think I'd be for it, but I would want the legislation to be written very similar to like our duck stamp.

So like the federal duck stamp bylaw, 98% has to go into like habitat access, habitat improvement, or habitat protection. So 98%. So that's you have a 2% gap for overhead to manage this, but the rest has to go. And I'd want something like that. And I'd want it to like specifically be for like winter range or winter herd health.

That would be like, if I could pick and choose, that's how I would like, my $30 is gonna go directly towards winter range improvement or winter range protection, migration, [00:55:00] corridor protection. I agree with that a hundred percent. Yeah, I'd be okay with that. Yeah. I'd pay 30 bucks for sure.

Absolutely. Awesome. Awesome. So it's getting close here to close. Coming up on an hour here. My last, I just want to say my, I just had one last question. What's the craziest, what's your favorite, your, or your craziest antler that you've ever come across as a western shed hunter?

I have a couple crazy ones to be honest with you. I got time. We do have time. I've been pretty, I, yeah, I've been pretty lucky to find some crazy stuff. Actually I was wondering if it was still in here because I've been moving stuff from my my shed pile out to my storage unit and I don't think it's here still.

Shoot, I was gonna show you a crazy one, but I don't think it's here anymore. I think I moved it out. Oh, that's okay. But anyway, but I do like unique stuff, bro. Like I have this one deer shed that literally is like a stag buck, but then it has a huge [00:56:00] base, it's like a seven eight inch base and you have a hole through it and then it stands like 16 inches tall.

Like it, it's stupid. It's the weirdest thing. And I'm a big fan of elk sheds, like more than anything, if I find a shed, I want it to be an elk shed. And so I, and I'm actually excited for you cuz you were saying that the two rag elk sheds are, like your only elk finds dude, if you find a mature elk shed, it just changes everything.

Oh dude. Like into that, you get into that 3 50, 360 class and dude, like it just changes you. And I've even had friends that were more fans of deer sheds and stuff like that and then they actually found a large elk shed switch. Oh, dude, you don't, you are preaching to the choir. So this bull behind me, that one went 3 54.

He only has a 34 inch inside, so Oh really? He's literally [00:57:00] got 160 inch sheds on both sides on average, right? I think one's 1 65 and the other one's 1 55 or something. But the mass that bowl has, his last mass measurement was like nine inches. What? Yeah. He carries that mass up, or, sorry, not not the measurement, but if you went right below his fourth, it's nine and a half inches.

That's not where you would take the official measurement. But that's the mass, like way up there. He's pulm made. Yeah, he's got, and his bases were both like, I think his base one base was almost 10 in the, and so then I don't, you don't get it between the fronts, right? It's base two to three, three to four, and then four to five.

Is that how it works? Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. And the taxidermist that understood said, Hey, I am not gonna be able to get this outta my basement once I mounted. And I'm like, okay, what happens then? Are you just shitting with me? You wanna keep this thing? He is a great friend, right?

So I'm like, what are you telling me? And he is I don't wanna scare you, but I think I'm gonna have [00:58:00] to cut the handlers off. And at this point I'm still like, dude, what are you like, are you still just trying to mess with me? What are you talking about? He's no, seriously, I'm gonna have to put a peg in 'em and then cut 'em.

So they're like, it'll be like a shed antler that I put on a peg and I'm like, oh, I love that idea. Let's do it for sure. So now I can pop both of those off and hold them like they're sheds. And dude, I've been doing it like every day I work from home. So I like take my lunch break, I walk over there and just pick one up and be like, this is what it's gonna be like in Arizona.

Hell yeah. Yeah. So that's awesome. Yeah. No, I, but I do know what you're saying, like that just the size and the length and he's got his whale tails curl up and he literally just looks like a wave on the ground. And you had to walk up on one of those things in the wild. Yeah, for sure. I'm gonna be addicted.

Absolutely. Yeah. Seeing, I even have a buddy he's one of my better friends that I go out with all the time, and he's just a deer nut. And I tell him all the time, I was like, dude, I would rather pick up like even a 360 bull over a 200 inch [00:59:00] set of deer sheds. And he thinks I'm nuts, but I'm being dead ass serious.

I, if I have the choice of a 200 inch buck and a 360 single, I'm taking the 360 single all day every single time. Yeah. So here's how I would do it. Here's how I'd play it. I'd do the 360 single, then I'd be like, next I'll take the 200 inch set. And then everyone after that is like a 360 single again.

Oh, just gimme the one. And then I'm going back to Elk. Now I'd still just take all 360 s I want one of my I'm a big, I'm an engineer by day, so I love numbers. I score every, like I could tell you the score of at least every top wire shed, all 10 of those, every buck in here. Like I can tell you the numbers on everything really.

And so I really wanna shoot a 200 inch whitetail. At some point in my life, I really would like to shoot a 400 inch elk, but I know that's basically a money game. Not really a luck or a skill game. It's a unicorn. Yeah. Yeah. Like I could buy a tag at [01:00:00] the Utah, at the Western HUN Expo and go hire Ryan Carter for five years in a row, and I'd probably eventually shoot a 400, but I don't have that kind of money.

That is pretty true. And they don't grow every year. Like I would have to go and go. So I'm like, okay, dial it back. I would love to find a 400 inch shed. A, what would that be? 180? Basically? No. Yeah. Yeah. 180 inch, yeah. 180, 180 inch side could go forward depending on the width. A bowl from a 400.

Like just a, and I hope, like heavy, like I don't wanna get too specific here. I'll take any 400 inch elk, but I think the heavy ones like just heavy blocks of bone would be the, where I'd love it. And then I'd love to find those, shoot a 200 inch mul deer or find a 200 inch shed from a mule deer i'd.

I'd take the mule deer. I'm still interested in a man, like I'm a flatlander. We don't have mul deer out here, so I'm still No, I get you. There's still like a little fantasy of like the west for me. I get you see, and even then, were, was that during the rut your elk hunt? Yeah. September 8th in North Dakota.

Any weapon? September 8th. [01:01:00] Imagine hunting like the sage country. That's where the elk are during the rud. And you get to use a rifle in New Mexico. That's what this hunt is. That's crazy. Once in a lifetime. Yeah. Hell yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. I was only asking that is just because I was wondering if you'd ever heard of bugle and all that yet.

Oh, do, yeah. Archery elk on every year. I've done archery elk for the last seven years, so we've been calling 'em in and with mild success on public land, over the counter general tags. But I think we're, I think we're, what's the, do you, I don't, nobody really knows, but it's like what, 10% DIY elk success is the number.

Something like that. Something like that, yeah. Archery. We're averaging, I think we're just shy of 20% in our group. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Maybe. Oh, it's the last couple years we've added a couple more people and we really haven't shot any more elk per year, so it might be dipping a little bit lower than that, but I would say pretty confidently we're over 10% in our group.

What state are you usually going to? [01:02:00] We do, we bounce between Wyoming and Montana quite a bit. Those are our two favorite. Wyoming our spot. We got a spot in Wyoming that's our favorite. We had the most success there. We called it, we Googled in 32 bowls one week. We got shots at two. That's just the black timber.

But we had bowls making noise within 60 yards, 32 times. That's crazy. Yeah. What? That's a good hunt. Yeah, it was beautiful. That's the hunt you dream about. That was beautiful. And just like the, that was when I, for that was the first time I really had one close enough and big enough to vibrate your chest.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I watched my brother shoot one on that trip, which was really fun. My brother has shot three or four with his bow. He's he's got all four of the rabbits, lucky feet in his pocket. Hell yeah. But this year we're going to Southern Colorado because we were playing the point game and we just ran outta momentum.

We can only bounce those two states back and forth so many times before you run out. And we're doing Southern Colorado. I drew go get this, so I don't know if you remember, but CP W switched their point system over a couple years ago, like three or four years ago. [01:03:00] They like updated their whole website experience.

I don't know if you remember that. I bought a point the year before that and then I went to apply for my point after that and I log in and I went from a one to five. Oh, what? Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah, I went from one point to five points because, and it was right when they switched their website over.

So I think it's a fluke. I was gonna say, was it a glitch or how does that I waited for two months or what? No, it was, I like, I was gonna buy it at the beginning of the point season and it was like I had an extra point that whole year. Oh no. And then in the next year, so I'm sitting on five points, right?

And the next year we had an issue, I had, our group size was too big for Wyoming and I was asked to be in a wedding for our archery season. And it's I'm not gonna it was one of my best buddies weddings. Like he's not a hunter. Like I can't blame him. So I'm like, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna go to the wedding.

I know a lot of people are like, oh, I wouldn't do it. I was like, don't be a jerk. Like you can hunt. Yeah. The next week you can both. Sure enough. So I said, you know what, I'll [01:04:00] step out. We have too many people. Anyway, I'm gonna apply for this unit in Colorado. Cuz at the time five points really gets you like the most value for the time, which is for me was zero.

Cause I got free points. And so I applied for the second rifle, five point unit and shot like a 280 inch bull. I did a solo alpine rifle hunt. Man. That was like a mind challenge being a alone that long up in the Alpine. And so I got to cash in my free four extra points and I shot a nice 280 inch bull.

He's technically a six by seven, but he's a little busted. And so you can't play with that, bro. Dude, it was such a cool experience, and I had like literally safety off on a rag horn, expecting the tag out, like crosshairs on a rag horn, and outta the corner of my scope, I see this third that's just and I'm like, oh my God, that's a big bull.

And so I move up, I'm like, oh, that's a nice bowl. I'm gonna shoot that bowl instead. And shot him. And turns out he had 18 inch thirds for, the rest of them's like weak, but he had these [01:05:00] thirds that were just massive. Gotcha. So yeah, that's my, and I'm actually supposed to Go ahead.

Go ahead. Oh, I was gonna say I'm supposed to dry out my limited entry tag this year for Utah, so I'm putting in archery. So hopefully that goes down. And we're actually putting in for we put in for Colorado as well for deer Third season. What, so when you say you limited entry, you talking elk. Yep.

And how many what unit? Central Mountains. Okay. I only know once, I don't know why I ask. I always talk about the Boulder. I only know the units that Ryan Carter Hunts in. And I, it's, I really do sound like a obsessed with Ryan Carter. We had 'em on the podcast a couple weeks ago and when I had this once in a lifetime North Dakota tag, I really soaked up everything he ever put out because he's known for big bowls.

And this unit, north Dakota's gotten monsters. There's literally 400 inches walking in it every year. Somebody shot a 4 37 1 year. I was on a bowl that was [01:06:00] a seven by eight. That was, I had, I asked Ryan to score cuz I'm like, I think this Bull's 400, but what do I know? And Ryan said in a, like a voice message.

Dude, I think that bull's like high three 80 s to high three 90 s. He could be there like, I don't know, stay on him. Dude, that's a monster bowl for sure. And so I was validated yes, this is almost a 400 inch bowl. And I had spent nine days trying to find him again. Couldn't do it. So I went to a different spot and saw that one and I was like, that is coming home with me.

Yeah. So yeah, dude, I, no Ryan's a good dude too. Dude. These limited entry elk tags, dude. They like, they get you so excited for so long. Like I hope you draw cuz that's gonna be like six months of you like not being able to sleep at night. Just like thinking about it. Oh yeah. Yep. Absolutely. So cool.

If you draw your limited entry, Utah, you go on your hunt, you're gonna have to come back and tell the. It's just gotta happen. Yeah. Yeah. It's just gotta happen. I'm about that. Cool. It's been a little over an hour and I wanna respect your time out there and I really [01:07:00] appreciate you coming on here, wessin.

Hopefully you guys have a great shed season. I'll be following along living vicariously through you after my own trip ends, and hopefully you and Tyler and Jenny really put 'em down. I appreciate it. No, and I wish you guys luck out there and I want to see some of those big elk sheds that you bring back home, dude.

I hope so. I really do. It's gonna be a great trip no matter what. I know that. But if we can find a couple browns, that's just gonna be icing on the cake. Absolutely. So thanks for being here, Weston. Thanks for listening folks. Yeah.

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