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Foreign. I'm Remy Warren and I've lived my life in the wild as a professional guide and hunter. I've spent thousands of days perfecting my craft. I want to give that knowledge to you. In this podcast we relive some of my past adventures as I give you practical hunting tips to make you more successful. Whether you're just getting started or a lifelong hunter, this podcast will bring you along on the hunt and teach you how to live wild. This podcast is brought to you by Mountain Tough and Yeti. Now for those that don't know, Mountain Tough is an online based training app that's designed for hunters to train you both mentally and physically for the mountains so you can go on. And there's programs designed with workouts that are specifically made to get you ready for the things you're going to encounter out there in the wild. And while a lot of you probably know that their programs are designed to get you ready, they also have programs designed to keep you ready during the season. It really is a year round process to help you be the best you can be on the hunt. If you're looking for a great gift this holiday season, Yeti has you covered with their Rambler drinkware. It's a leak fruit, stackable, ton of different colors and everything for drinking water, coffee, wine or beer. They even have shot glasses and flasks. They're great stocking stuffers and an awesome gift to give this holiday season. Welcome back to LiveWell podcast everyone. Now as we start to get into application season for many Western big game hunts, we look at a strategy of balancing the quality of the hunt with the opportunity to actually get a tag. This is a delicate balance that all state game managers wrestle with every single year is how to balance it all. And it's no secret that it's harder than ever to obtain tags as many of the over the counter hunts that were out there are starting to diminish and the demand for tags is an all time high. So today I actually thought it might be interesting to look at the state of hunting and the type of seasons offered. Tags are getting harder to get, success rates seem to be increased and in turn the opportunity to get out there is being diminished. Much of this begs to ask the question, is modern equipment just too efficient? What does it mean for the future of hunting and what are some of the options? So today we're going to look at hunting through the lens of going the hard way, shifts in opportunity and management, and how you might be able to apply this to your application strategy and New opportunities that are going to be on the horizon and what you might start seeing. We're going to kind of go into the future and think about what might you start seeing in many states as far as tags and tag offerings coming up. But before we do that, I want to share the story of my father in law's deer hunt with a lever gun. So last year was really fun because I got the opportunity to hunt with a lot of different family and friends. And on one of these hunts I actually got to hunt with my father in law. So my wife's dad for deer and he had his. He really likes to use like more classic rifles, lever guns, straight walled or even black powder cartridges, calibers that you don't hear about anymore and all, you know, with often open sight rifles. So he had his lever gun. I can't remember exactly what caliber it was. It was one that I hadn't really heard much of which made it cool to see. I wish I were remembered but. And so anyways we went out. We were actually going to go elk hunting that particular morning and we started to go to the a spot to glass and it was just socked in like it was that one of those kind of. I don't know. This year it seemed like it was kind of warm weather but we got a lot of rain and a lot of clouds. So it was cloudy, you couldn't see very far and rainy. With us was my wife and our two kids. So we decided to just go to a spot and maybe look for some deer for the day. We got to one particular place and it seemed, I think we saw a few does to start off, but no bucks. And then got to another spot and I spotted a buck. So the kind of hunt was on and Ray got out and made a stock and there's like some old logging roads and the deer happened to be near one of these old logging roads. So he worked down the logging road. And it was like the buck was more interested in the does than. Than us and just kind of kept moving with the does. And we stayed back, the kids and my wife and I stayed back and he circled around to try to get into position and I don't know what happened but the wind was good, everything was good. But the buck ended up kind of running back past us and disappearing. But when the buck ran past us, I looked at. It was like that just seemed like a. A different buck. I don't know. It was. Wasn't. Just didn't. Didn't necessarily look the same. So I. I kind of Thought, well, maybe. Maybe there's another deer in here. And that one got run off. But it was similar enough that maybe I just saw the deer different or wrong or just different angle, and it was moving through the timber pretty good. It's just a really thick kind of timbered area, pretty steep hillside. So the deer disappeared, and we kind of thought, oh, man, that was a cool opportunity. But bummer, it almost worked out. So we go down this. This old logging road a little bit further, and sure enough spot a group of does, and thinking, man, there's just got to be a buck here. The deer earlier is a younger buck, but he's acting pretty ruddy, man, where's this. Where's this other buck? And so behind the group of does, this other buck pops out and starts pushing the deer, and it's really timbered. And there's enough does around that there's no shot. So Ray gets into position, gets up against a tree, and just patiently waits. He's got his open sight lever gun, and the deer start kind of like moving toward us. It. They probably started out about 60, 70 yards, and now this little buck's, like, pushing these does, and he's pushing the does essentially right toward us. And so the. The. The buck's pushing the does, and he's just hot on this doe, kind of following her in. The does kind of looking, but doesn't really see us. There's. There's enough timber that, you know, she's not too. Too concerned or maybe just doesn't see what's going on. And probably more distracted with that buck that's. That's trying to move her around so she's moving, and they move in, and it's getting closer and closer. And then finally the buck turns broadside, but there's just no shot. And then that doe starts walking even closer toward us. And that buck is now in tow. And at this point, he's probably 30. 30 yards away. And that does probably like 25 yards away. It was. It was very exciting. My kids are pretty excited, and they're. They're watching, and the. The bucks now, like, very close. Ray lines up, shoots, and just drops the buck. My son, he's only. I guess he would have been a little, like two and a half, almost three at the time. And he's like, wow, grandpa, great shot. You know, it was so fun to have the kids there. And. And we went down, took some pictures with the buck, and then I. I ended up just making a backpack with it because it's kind of steep and Putting it on my shoulders, carrying it up to the flat spot of the logging road to, to gut it and take care of it. But it was cool, it was a fun hunt and you know, it was cool to see somebody that, that likes to go out and just hunt the way that they like to hunt with a, you know. Yeah, it was a general type season. You can use any, any kind of rifle. But he chose to use an open sight lever gun and, and still came out with a deer. And we had so much fun and it was just really an awesome hunt to be a part of and it was fun to, to do it with the kids there. They just thought it was the greatest. They thought it was so cool. And, and it's fun. Like we've, we get to bring our kids, we're very fortunate. We get to bring our kids on a lot of hunts and that one is one that just, it worked out great. So it was a lot of fun. And you know, it got me thinking, like there's a lot of hunts out there that maybe cater toward those more, we'll call them like more primitive weapon choices, traditional muzzleloader hunts, traditional archery hunts. There's now quite a few hunts coming out with open sight rifles or limited caliber burrs that you can hunt with. So there's a lot of cool options in the horizon and a lot of ways that if you kind of maybe lessen the, or restrict to the type weapon, you might find yourself in more potential hunting opportunities in the future. I like to think of this time of year is what we call application season. And I know it's funny because honestly, application season can be as tumultuous as the hunting season, right? And not everybody wants all the secrets to be given out. And one of the things that I don't do is I don't like to say, oh, this is the particular area, this is the particular state, if you notice. I mean, and you know, maybe that's just my personal feeling on it. I feel like I like to give you guys the information to kind of do it yourself and then come to your own conclusions. But there are a few tips and tactics of getting out and trying to obtain a tag. Many that I use to have tags more often. Now the balance is always this, where you're trying to balance the opportunity of having a tag in your hand or your pocket to the type of potential hunt and quality of the hunt. So often as more tags are issued, you're balancing opportunity with quality. And then as there's fewer tags, you're really limiting the Opportunity, but often increasing the quality of the hunt. So on those areas where there might be very few 1 to 10 tags, right, you're often looking at potential trophy. We're going to call it trophy hunt and use the buzzword where. What that means is there's just a more or a higher likelihood of mature animals, larger animals, often more game spotted, fewer hunters, and fewer encounters with other hunters. And like an overall higher quality hunt. Now, that's not always the case. Sometimes it's the opposite. Where you have. I've had hunts where have a general season tag where there's lots of hunters and that happens to be the unit or this the place that year where I take my biggest, you know, it's like my best me. There's. There's been years where my best deer, elk has come from a general unit in years where I drew really good tags and didn't. Didn't turn up that special buck. So, you know, it can go either way. But in general, like for just speaking generally, there's. What game managers do, and every state's a little bit different, is trying to balance that opportunity of people being able to get out and hunt with the quality or overall quality of the hunt. And that might mean the quality of the animals, the quality of the experience, fewer hunters, a lot of different things. And so one of the ways that states often try to manage this is they're constantly looking at, okay, the success rates. Because, you know, hunting is. Is not just. It's also a management tool. And that management tool is used to really kind of control the populations of certain animals and keep them within certain numbers so that we see them overall grow, or in some areas, maybe we've got too many and we have to take more than we might in another spot out of that area. So they're constantly trying to balance this, manage these areas. And one of the factors that goes into this is hunter success rates. Well, one of the things that we've seen over the last bit of time, I feel, and I know, you know, maybe just depends on where you're looking. But overall, we've seen an increase in success rates on a lot of hunts. So they try to balance the opportunity by giving people a chance to get out, but thinking that the success rate's going to be low because of whatever factors. So you can have more opportunity if you anticipate a lower success rate. So for a couple of examples, units for mule deer, where there might be more tags issued, but they issue those tags in an inopportune season, generally during the October Months, that's after mule deer have shed their velvet and before they come out for the rut. So they might have. You might find a season where the opportunity is expected to be low because of the seasonality of that particular hunt. It's harder to find mule deer that time of year. So, look, we can offer more tags and give people more of an opportunity to get out there. And then as somebody that's looking for a hunt, you say, hey, if there's a tag in my pocket, I have a chance because I can get out on the hunt and see if I can make it happen. Other ways that they balance this opportunity and the hunts is by offering different types of weapon choices for the hunt. So you might see an archery season, you might see a muzzleloader season, you might see a short range weapon season, you might see an any legal weapon season. And so by doing that, they can kind of balance this. Okay, well, we're expecting during archery season there to be fewer success rates, so therefore it's okay to offer an over the counter hunt. On many of those previous over the counter elk tags, they were able to offer over the counter hunts because they expected the success rate to be around, I don't know, 10% or less. Now, as those success rates start to jump up to 30, 40%, if that's the case, I mean, that's pretty high. But if they did, then they start to go, whoa, okay, now we have to start to restrict that. Or they start to see too many hunters in the field taking advantage of that system. So they go, okay, there's more hunters now, more animals are being harvested. We're gonna have to severely limit this. Or it's just creating not as good of an opportunity for the hunt because there's too many hunters actually out in the field. And in some cases, maybe that's a strategy too, where they just have so many hunters that success rates go down because everybody's stepping on each other's toes. But overall, it's just trying to balance the opportunity, the quality of the hunt, and it's part of the process that game managers deal with. So when we're looking to apply all of these factors come into play, and understanding why a season might be set or the types of different seasons out there and the intent behind those seasons really helps us find those, I guess, openings in the spot where we can find that sweet spot where we go, okay, I really want a tag. I might be looking for whatever kind of hunt, but having a tag is probably the most important. I just want the opportunity to get out there. Because if I'm out there, okay, I have the chance to, to draw a tag. And with that tag in my hand, I kind of have that hope that, okay, if I do everything right, if I get into position, if I, if I have the skills and abilities, I can be successful or even just, hey, maybe I, maybe I'm just hoping to get lucky, but at least I'm out there and have a tag and I'm able to get on a hunt. And so the way that we do that is we look for specific hunts that really balance that opportunity with the quality. And so the, the one thing that I think about is like, growing up in Nevada and living in Nevada, my wife decided she wanted to get into hunting and so started applying for tags. And it's one of those things where she went years without. She's like, I want to hunt, but I just don't. I can't get a tag. She went years before getting a tag, and finally she was like, well, how do it was starting to get frustrated, like, I'm not drawing anything. I, I seems impossible. I was like, well, I, I get a tag nearly every year or every other year because of the types of hunts I'm choosing. I'm choosing to go with a bow. There's fewer hunters willing to do it and more opportunity to draw a tag. It's like, the success is going to be lower, the hunt's going to be a lot harder. But if you just want to get out, you're going to have to switch to maybe thinking about applying for archery or muzzleloader hunts. And so she started to do that. She started applying for archery hunts and started drawing, you know, tags. And then the other thing was, I said, you know, as she started to do that, I'm like, and then also the option of putting in for hunts that might be a lot more difficult hunts, ones that are, have more hunters in them where success is a lot lower. If you start to go with units where success is lower and a weapon choice that's more difficult, the odds of obtaining a tag dramatically increase. The odds of coming home with a buck or a bull or whatever dramatically decrease. But that's kind of the balance that you're playing. So you can try to find somewhere in between where you have what you're looking for as far as obtaining a tag, and then maybe the type of quality hunt that you're really gunning for. So one of the tactics that I use a lot is looking for these, these kind of openings in applications where you can choose a Different weapon type. You can choose an off season, you can really play to those opportunities. But with that tag in your pocket, you have the opportunity to get out, hunt and potentially be successful. So we'll go over a few of those and then we'll look at some of the things that might be changing and some of the hunts that might be kind of interesting in the future as we look at higher hunter numbers, more demand for tags, and honestly an increase in success because of probably, I mean, more information and the technology available to hunters that just makes hunters more successful. So we'll talk about that in a little bit. But first we're going to look at some of those things. When you're doing an application or trying to apply for a hunt, where you go, man, it seems daunting, it seems nearly impossible to obtain a tag. What are some ways that I can maybe get into a tag quicker and just have more opportunity? So we're going to look for those more opportunity hunts. Those are going to be. Those opportunity type hunts are going to be often by looking at different weapon choices, archery muzzle or the more primitive the weapon choice, often easier to draw the tag. We're going to look at, you know, the offerings of those like more hunters and lower hunter. Success often means easier to draw a tag in many instances because the areas with the higher success and the better animals or the more roads or the easier access often lends itself to more applicants. So the type of. So we're going to look at the type of weapon, the type of terrain and the type of hunt. And then also one of the other things we can look at is the seasonality of it, inopportune seasons for particular hunts. So for an example, Arizona has some great units for elk and some of those units offer archery tags in the rut or rifle tags during the rut. And those hunts are near impossible to draw unless you have max points or really high points. And then there's some areas that are just mid tier areas that are also in that and they're for those time frames also very, very difficult to draw. You can't expect it. However, there might be some seasons and units where you've got an archery season that's in after or late, like around late rifle seasons where animals, the elk would be timbered up. They're going to be difficult to find and they're going to be difficult to get on with a bow. The success is lower, it's expected to be lower. It's a difficult hunt, but you can get the opportunity to get out the same with maybe some potentially late rifle seasons in many places or early rifle seasons in many places. If there's areas or you can notice hunts where it's like, oh, this seems like a decent area but has really good draws. What's going on here? What's going on is it's generally an inopportune time to find success success or it's an inopportune time and it has a weapon choice that makes it very difficult to find success. However, it might be a hunt that you can get into sooner or earlier because you choose to go with that off season, difficult season and or weapon restriction that makes it more difficult to find success. And that way you can get into a hunt and have a tag sooner. There's a lot of states out there where you'll be looking through draw odds and statistics and you'll see that, oh, here's an area that's near impossible to draw. There's four or five tags. Almost every state has some form of this where there's some very difficult tags and then you can almost hunt that same unit in an earlier season. This happens for deer a lot. Where October type seasons are near general units and then rut ones are limited. Entry or early season rifle hunts might be fairly decent draws, a lot better than you might get for those some of those late season type hunts because the opportunity is a lot more difficult. Another thing you're going to find in applying for hunts and balancing that opportunity is areas that are more difficult to access have a lot better chances of obtaining a tag. So wilderness areas, areas that are have fewer and lower success often have this as well. Where you might have X amount of tags and very low success, low animal densities, difficult hunts, those hunts can be a lot easier to obtain tags. There's a lot of guys out there that get a tag every single year and find success fairly often, maybe not every year, but they, they're able to obtain a tag every year because they're going to the places that people don't really want to hunt. This, that was my strategy for a long time is and still is, is okay, I'll just get the tags in the places that everybody says is garbage. Not for really any reason other than okay, I can get the hunt and I can, I feel like, okay, I can lean on my skills and abilities and hopefully find success. I found in a lot of really low density areas and had some good hunts. I've also done those same hunts and seen nothing and had a terrible experience. And you go, well, okay. I mean you're Spending time, you're spending money, you're going to go do these hunts, and you kind of want to have some semblance of like balancing opportunity with quality. Right? But there, there have been times where I go, okay, I'm looking for a hunt, I need to find something. Here's one where the quality might not be great as far as overall animal numbers, overall success. But hey, it's got a few things going for it maybe has fewer hunters. And for me, it was just a way to kind of get away and look for the type of hunt that I'm looking for now. In areas where there's lots of tags, there's often lots of opportunity. And there's also a lot of opportunity to obtain a tag. So in many cases, sometimes chasing the. The areas where there are a lot of tags, you have a higher percentage of actually obtaining a tag because there are lots of tags. Yes, you're going to deal with other hunters, but that doesn't mean that you also can't get away from them or, I mean, in some cases even use them to your advantage of animals moving around, getting pushed around, and having success, finding success, or having a decent hunt. So those are all things that you're going to want to look at now. I think the last thing that I kind of wanted to talk about today is just kind of diving into what we might start to see in the future and how many units, states, other things are balancing this opportunity and quality, how they're also balancing the number of hunters in the field, but trying to potentially limit success. So I think that when we think about the state of hunting right now and a lot of the seasons, I really do think that compared to the past, maybe when I was growing up, success rates are definitely a lot higher. And the reason is a lot of things. There's a lot more information. There's podcasts like this one, which I definitely do think provide an advantage. If you have a certain type of knowledge, you can be more successful. There's also a lot of tools that allow hunters to be more successful. Rifles are more accurate, and we have rangefinders and scopes that can be dialed into the exact range. Bows shoot way farther than when I was growing up and also more accurate. We have laser range finders, which can tell you the yardage. When I started bow hunting, I didn't have a laser range. I didn't have a rangefinder. I think like my bow, like we had aluminum arrows and fixed blade broadheads. Didn't know much about tuning. Bows were hard to tune. I mean, I, I don't know. I don't. I'm sure there were people that understood tuning a bow real well. But for the most part, like it was real hard to get a good group out past 30 or 40 yards. Most, most animals shot with a bow were sub 40 yards, probably around 30, between 20 and 30 yards because the equipment just wasn't really built for it. And then anything further, you just had to guess the yardage and the amount of drop that you got from your arrows because the, the slow speeds and all that stuff was substantial. Like if you didn't guess it, you're probably missing it. And so for that reason, bow hunts were more unsuccessful muzzleloaders. When I was growing up, I mean not to be the old guy, be like, well, when I was a kid, but I mean honestly, when I was a kid, muzzleloaders were like short range weapons designed to shoot 100 yards or less. And now you've got muzzleloaders that with open sight, turreted adjustments that guys are shooting 3, 4, 500 yards or have the capability to do that. And all that's, you know, I understand it all, you know, I've been a part of all of it. I've had those, those muzzleloaders, I've got those great bows, I've got those great rifles. But then on the flip side too is you really kind of when, when you're looking at managing a population, offering opportunity and then you have maybe say it's like we have a muzzleloader season because it limits the opportunity. However, the muzzleloader season, now there were some states that was like you could have a muzzleloader that shot 3 or 400 yards. You could put a scope on, adjustable scope on it. Well, kind of defeated the purpose. It just made it another rifle season and therefore increase the success. Therefore they have to keep the tag number's low. And so what you see is just this constant balance of technology growing, making people more efficient, which you want, you want to go out, you want to be the one that's successful, you want to find success on the hunt, right. But as more people start to do that, then the number of tags has to start being decreased. So what you start to see is potential weapons restrictions within those seasons in various states. And I think that that's something that we're going to start seeing pretty regularly now. You know, I think about like when I was, when I was growing up, archery, elk season, very low success rates. It just like most archery seasons, very low success rates. I would say they were like around 1 to 5% in many places. And so they could offer a lot of tags because they weren't too worried about harvesting too many, too many animals. But now, honestly, like, their success with a bow is not as hard as it used to be. And I mean, I'm saying that I know people are like, dude, it's still very hard. I have, I struggle killing elk, struggle killing deer. And yeah, that's, that is true. However, like the opportunity you can shoot with, you know, fairly little practice, you could shoot efficiently out to 50 yards with pretty much any modern bow and setup. And that's the truth. So, you know, I think what you might start to see is in places is more traditional bow hunts or hunts where the bow season incorporates no sights, where it incorporates no compound bows, things like that. Where, okay, now the success rate is going to be lower. We've, we've limited the type of equipment and therefore we can now offer more tags and maybe a little bit more opportunity. I think you're going to start seeing that with muzzleloader scenes as well. And you've already started to see that places that used to offer muzzleloader hunts with scopes have made it open. Sites or places that used to allow inline muzzleloaders are now going to percussion cap style muzzleloaders or traditional muzzleloaders, which might be like a round, a patched round ball or a fully like unsabbated bullet, like just a solid lead bullet. Different options like that loose powder as opposed to preformed pellets. You start to see changes in the weapons restrictions to allow for kind of more primitive weapons within those categories. You probably start to see things like, I mean, there's places that have archery seasons that allow crossbows. And I imagine that, you know, you're going to start seeing that go away as those success rates kind of increase. And then you'll probably start to see rifle hunts or general rifle seasons that don't allow rifle scopes or open sights only, or limit the types of calibers and cartridges that can be used on these. I wouldn't be surprised if there was lever gun seasons in the future, straight wall cartridges in the future, you know, restrictions on only lighter caliber rifles or more classic caliber rifles, more of a traditional rifle hunt. And so I think that that's going to be something that you're going to see. You're already starting to see it. There's places like Utah where they've got some open sight rifle hunts, some traditional bow hunts. There's a lot of states that have those kind of hunts if you seek them out there's other states where, hey, they might have had limited entry rifle hunts. Only now they're for like other species like sheep and goats and stuff like that. And now they're going to start to open up different muzzleloader or archery hunts for those. So those are something you like go. Okay. As we understand what, what game managers might be dealing with, the higher success and then now how they might limit it, you might be able to carve out a good place for you where you can find tags easier and get into hunts sooner by having, you know, or choosing to hunt with different weapon classes or styles or restrictions. So it's something to think about as you're looking at applying in a different state. Okay, what are some of the options for some of these restricted weapons hunts? There's a lot of areas too where you might see short range weapons, where it's shotgun muzzleloader or archery, handgun muzzleloader, archery, things like that, where you go, okay, more short range weapons. But I can get into the hunt sooner and maybe potentially have a tag. And you're going to start to see this. I believe this is kind of my prediction for the future. You're going to really start to see this more and more in every state of them trying to balance opportunity to say, hey, for the guys that just want to get tagged, we're going to, we're going to offer you this. But you got to hunt with xyz. So you're going to see a lot more traditional muzzleloader hunts, a lot more traditional bow hunts, a lot more limited caliber or short range and open sight rifle hunts. And so that's something to think about and also something to consider, you know, getting into and being prepared for when those happen. You know, I've got my sights set on a couple of hunts that I'm going to be doing and you know, utilizing some of this strategy where. Okay, cool. There's a traditional bow hunt that seems like right up my alley. You know, I know the success is going to be low, but I love hunting with my trad bow and it's going to be fun to just have that opportunity to get out. And the other thing is it kind of forces you to do it. You know, when you've got the opportunity to use the best equipment possible, it's nice to do that. And even those hunts can be unsuccessful and very difficult. So to just add on or tackle on intentionally going a harder way. To some people it makes no sense, but to others it's like, hey, I get to get out, I get the opportunity and sometimes it can be in some pretty good areas or good units. I think another thing that you'll start to see with, you know, weapons restrictions and things is just the potentially banning some of the higher let offs on bows where you know, you can hold the bow back at 80, 85% of the draw weight, where maybe some of those start to increase. I think like, you know, theoretically, if we're just going to go down the rabbit hole of what could be, you know, I think that you could see, you know, some stuff like there's a lot of rules that could be made that would limit the success with certain or restrict the weapon and probably limit the success just by a few things that state managers could do in regulation changes as far as like bow hunting. I mean you could, you could make it where it's like you have to have a large fixed blade, broadhead and increase the total arrow weight. Therefore the bow can't shoot as far and probably isn't going to fly as good. So you know, you're going to have to, you know, have certain like restrictions within the equipment that might limit maybe the potential distance that you could shoot or something with like a muzzleloader where you see, okay, it's gotta be loose powder and round balls or patched round balls only flintlock seasons, percussion cap seasons, stuff like that. I just think that there's a lot of things that you might potentially see not only in the weapons restrictions, but I don't know, I mean there's a lot of technology restrictions that you see coming to play now as well. Stuff like banning of trail cameras, banning of trail cameras that send images via data, banning of thermal imaging. I didn't even know there was. I kind of just assumed thermals were banned everywhere. But there's a lot of places where they've actually been legal for hunting. Something that I don't think will happen, but very well could and would definitely limit the hunter success is a banning of range finders during a hunt. I mean these are all things that, you know, I wouldn't be surprised. Banning of drones. Most places drones are banned, but there are places where people, I don't know who's hunting with thermal drones or whatever, but I mean there's places where they're legal to use for recovery, which I'm not opposed to. But you know, I think that like there you just think about all these pieces of technology where it increases the success. Other gear restrictions like many, many places don't allow two way communication. Some do. So you might see like some of the technology changing. Whereas like places that used to allow radios and two way communication might change that to not allow it. Some of this is, you know, some of these bans are based on fair chase standards and ethics based on states and varying things. And other ones are just ways that they try to, you know, limit maybe the potential advantage of the hunter and be able to offer more opportunity while having people still be able to get out in the field and have a quality hunt. So I think in all what you're going to find is when it comes to applying there's, if you understand the system that's in place, quality is, there's this balance of quality and opportunity. And as somebody, if you're like, hey, I'm just looking for an opportunity, I'm looking for a chance to get out, then you can find these kind of pockets where they've set up for that balance of opportunity. And those pockets involve weapons restrictions. Those pockets involve seasons outside of the prime dates and some or, and, or some combination of the two. You might even start to see some weapons restrictions hunts in non prime dates. You go, okay, well these are going to be more difficult, less expected success. However, I can get on the hunt and maybe find a higher quality hunt and depending on what your version of quality is, maybe it's fewer hunters in the field. Well, you might find that on a non prime weapons restriction hunt or you could say like, well maybe you've got a better area, but you have to hunt maybe not with a rifle, but a traditional muzzleloader or something like that. So you're going to see a lot of this balance and I think you're going to see a lot more of it in the future. And I actually encourage it. I think that Moore State should offer these more primitive type punts to balance opportunity. I think it's a really good way to, I think limiting some of the technology. Like I love using all that stuff, I'm not gonna lie. Like anytime that I hate when something gets banned because it just, it kind of, it takes away a little bit of in some ways like the things, your freedom, you're like, you feel like, oh man, this sucks. Right, I get it. But on the, on the flip side, I don't mind when they're like, hey, we're going to try to spread people out, we're going to have a few seasons, everybody, they got to manage these populations and do it to the best of their ability. And so I think like if you start to see these hunts where it's like hey, we got a traditional Muzzleloader, I mean, we're, we're, we're limiting the type of muzzleloaders and then still have maybe an inline muzzleloader season down, down the line and split it up, or a traditional bow season or straight wall rifle cartridge season or an open sight rifle. I think those things are going to offer more opportunity and potentially, you know, spread out hunter demand, spread out hunter pressure. And I think they're a good way to kind of some new, new ways of thinking that I think are going to be good in the future. And I think you're going to see a lot more of them. I would not be surprised if many places you start to see more and more restrictions on the type of equipment that you can use. And it makes sense, I think, when they're trying to manage opportunity, quality and success rates. Well, I hope you guys enjoyed that podcast. You know, one of the ways that we can increase opportunities to get in the field is probably one of my favorites. And that is if there's more animals on the landscape, there's going to be more opportunity for tags. And that's elk, deer, all these things, right? And probably the best way to have more animals on the landscape is improvements in habitat. And that is often done through conservation partnerships and organizations. So one of my favorites, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. When you look at their missions, goals and the things that they do, a lot of it is benefiting habitat not just for elk, but for all species. And when you create these partnerships where they do projects like removing fences and improving migration corridors, seed planting and obtaining land that won't be developed on in winter range, really protecting winter range, all these things, right? It all bolsters the population. When we have those high animal populations and combined with a desire for people that want to get out and hunt, then we can offer more tags and more opportunity and that quality overall increases. It's that behind the scenes action of conservation that allows more tags and more hunting opportunities. So if you got, this is the time of the podcast where, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to say if you're like, yeah, I like this application strategy stuff, I like all this stuff, but man, it's getting hard to get tags. Put more into conservation, management of habitat and increasing habitat for all species. And a really good way to do that is to be a member of an organization like the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. So if you guys aren't members, this is my conservation corner today. I'm using it to promote an awesome organization. Go there, subscribe to their, become a member. If you're a member, increase your membership, add a donation, be a life member, all that kind of stuff, or get out on a project. There's so many projects around where you can help. I mean, I see like seating projects and fence pulling projects, all these kind of projects around with local chapters. So just I'm encouraging you guys, that's a way that we can kind of increase our opportunity and increase the quality of the hunts is just by, you know, supporting these organizations that are doing the real work. And I think I'm going to, I'm actually going to jump on and do a podcast with some of the guys over at RMEF again because it's fun to bring those, those conservation success stories and know what's going on and how it's benefiting. Not just, you know, every single one of these organizations, whether it's elk, deer, sheep, whatever, they benefit all the animals in those habitats. When we focus on habitat, so focus on habitat, winter range, migration corridors, all that stuff, all the things that we need for big populations of animals. And as hunters, I mean, I remember those times or those units where you go in there and you're like, wow, the population here is insane. What's like, this is a great hunt. The quality increases when we have really great thriving populations of game animals. So I'm gonna say that. And until next week, apply smart. We'll catch you guys later.