Nerding Out About Mule Deer and Their Management with Jared Oakleaf

Foreign.

Welcome to the Hunt West Podcast. Here's your host, Jaden Bales. Before we get into the episode, I wanted to deliver you a quick advertisement. I'm going to do this one and the one in the middle, and they're going to be 30 seconds long, so I promise it won't take much time. That said, I'm already cutting into my time, so here we go. I wanted to let you know that every Sunday we send out this email. It's called the Hunt West Digest. And the Hunt West Digest is kind of what I'm calling, like, the speakeasy of Western hunting emails. Someone once told me that they're really glad that not everyone who hunts out west gets the email because there's some real gems in there. That's also why we're capping the email at a thousand readers and we're over a third of the way there. So make sure you're signed up for the Hunt West Digest either in the show notes or by going to Huntwest.net you're listening to the Hunt West Podcast. Thanks for sitting down with me, man. I've got Jared Oakleaf on the line today. You and I, I think, are some of the few mule deer nerds in. In our little hometown. So I wanted to get you on to talk all things mule deer today. I know it's probably getting tiresome for a lot of people because I feel like that's what anybody's talking about, the West. But before we get all into that, I actually was curious, like, how old were you when you shot your first mule deer?

Oh, good question. First mule deer. I would have been.

15. Yeah.

Yeah.

How'd that go down?

Funny story about that. There's a. Now a pretty popular trail area outside of Lander here called the Bus.

Okay.

Back then, it, like, it wasn't pop. Very popular.

Like, was it developed, like, it wasn't developed at all.

And people just didn't go there. It was just like a regular old piece of state land.

Okay.

And we'd gotten a bunch of snow during deer season that year. We gotten snowed out of where we'd seen bigger deer on actually on the forest, which you don't really see around here much anymore. And I convinced my dad to take me out there and we popped over the first ridge from where the state land crosses the county road, and there was a fork at Horn and ended up shooting it. That was. That was my first mule deer. Now, you go there and there's still deer there, but. But you wouldn't find deer where Where I shot that one, I mean, it's basically has a lot of people going past it every day.

If you did find deer there, you'd be dodging the bikers.

We would have had to allow some bikers to clear the Runway before we could have shot at that buck. But.

So this was back in the day before antler point restrictions, right?

Yeah, it would have been. I, I don't think in the Lander region we had antler point restrictions until maybe we started hidden around the time I was in high school. So. Well, I, I would have been. When I got that deer, I would have been probably maybe a freshman in high school. And then towards the end of high school, we started having, I remember antler point restrictions coming on.

Okay.

Yeah.

It's funny, I was talking to somebody who lives in Sheridan the other day and they didn't even realize that like we had it. And I was like, I don't think people realize even within the state, let alone out of the state, that Wyoming uses antler point restrictions a whole bunch. The whole point of this wasn't to necessarily get down that. But what do you think happens when you see Wyoming use aprs in here locally?

Yeah, it's an interesting question. I think my evolution as a deer hunter, certainly when I was younger, I kind of bought into the idea that that would mean bigger deer. Right. And I remember at one point riding in a truck with. My dad was a biologist with Wyoming Game Fish, a non game biologist, but we were riding in a truck with a game biologist and I was, I was in high school at this point and I was saying how great this antler point restriction was. And the game biologist at the time kind of gave me the what for about it and informed me that it's not all roses when it comes to managing deer. And I kind of put that in the back of my mind like, oh, okay, so biologically this might not be good, but it's still got to be good for, for hunters, right?

For some.

But over time, as I've, you know, we've cycled through antler point restrictions I think three or four times now during my hunting lifetime here in the Lander Valley. And every time we do it, I see a few things obviously on the positive is it always has an opportunity to grow our buck to do ratio, you know, allow some of those younger bucks to escape harvest. But the other thing that I've really come to appreciate with antler point restrictions and the real downside of it is that it focuses everybody on four point deer and, and the pressure really goes from being focused on the available bucks. So if there's an age cohort that's big in the population, that's where the pressure and the harvest occurs to arbitrarily kind of forcing everybody to like an example of a four point or better at four points. So a few things happen from what I've viewed and then now doing a little bit of my own research on this and reading some of the papers on it, scientific papers on it. And big one is younger. Four points get shot. Yeah. Which means they don't get an opportunity to grow up to be mature. Four points. And so you know, a good example is with antler point restrictions if, if you have a group of bucks which these younger bucks tend to be in groups into our rifle season. Right. And of those are three three point deer without eye guards. But the poor one that decided to grow I guards as a three point deer get will get shot in that. And, and so that manifests down downstream to when you have mature bucks on standing on the landscape that don't necessarily or haven't really expressed their full genetic potential. On top of that it forces a lot of harvest in that three and a half to four and a half year old age class which then successively collapsed those next age classes, the five and the six and a half. And so from just strictly from being a trophy buck hunter or. I like to think of myself as that I'm, I'm not a very good one but I do think of myself as that. I, it makes me apprehensive when we do antler point restriction. And then the other. Probably my biggest apprehension about antler point restrictions is it just unnecessarily limits opportunity for not a real benefit to the deer herd as a whole. A two point bucks not go is not going to have a fawn.

Yeah. Not the last time I checked.

Yeah. And. And a lot of the, the research that we keep going is that the conception rates of deer are very high. And so we can have really low buck to doe ratios and still get very high conception rates. And so we're really carrying over over a limiting harvest to carry over a bunch of bucks. And that may not necessarily help the population.

Yeah. So going back thinking about like the time horizon that you've been hunting this area, do you feel like there was more big, big bucks like you know, 10, 15, 20 years ago or do you think it's about the same and you know, things have just kind of stagnated.

That's a tough one because as you well know like when you're starting your hunting career. Yeah. What's a big buck at the start of your hunting career? And when you're hunting constantly in kind of a chaos mode anyways. And what you see is a lot of deer running away from you. Every. Everything seems big, you know.

Ye.

And so it's. It's hard to like, I. I would say once I kind of change my habits, I'd say as probably out of. Out of college or. Yeah, done with College. So around 2001. So we're going on 25 plus years now and just looking at deer and hunting them in a way where, you know, the classic. You get high spots, you get glassing in spots and particularly archery hunting. You look at them for a long time and then adding on that a significant amount of scouting. I honestly can't really say that I've seen an oscillation one way or the other.

Just depends on the year more.

Yeah, yeah, certainly. Certainly no real linkage to how. Why I'm game fish is managing buck harvest. Right. You know.

Right.

So. So that it is kind of interesting. I mean, I, I would say just. And, and just to show you how anecdotal our observations are as hunters, the winner of 2022, 23 will forever be mentioned among buck hunters in the West, I think. And it's kind of funny because I grew up with a dad who always mentioned the winner of 78, 79. Is that was the last time good. You know, after. Before that winter, that was the last time that big bucks were running around and in numbers, you know. But I can say that some of the best in terms of seeing lots of larger deer. And you and I communicated throughout that. That summer scouting after that winter, that was one of the better years of seeing big bucks and numbers of bucks that I've had in the last five. And so I don't. Yeah, I don't know that what we're seeing as hunters really reflects what's going on with the herd.

Yeah.

Particularly when we're so myopically focused on bucks that, you know, I think both you and I try to like, keep track of the does and fawns, but it's easy to get distracted.

Well, and I even. I was trying to keep track of fawns last year and I remember thinking like, oh man, I'm seeing a bunch. And then the winter count comes out and it's like below average. I'm like, okay, well, I was just wrong, you know, I didn't know what I was looking at, dude. The other thing That I was thinking about. You know, you spent a ton of time scouting, and it was. It's super cool because we didn't ever really share spots for. And we still really don't, but we end up in the same places naturally. And you sent me a picture of the buck I killed in velvet, and I killed him in October. Right. So that's been kind of cool. But when did you get into scouting? Like, was that something that you started, like, in the early 2000s, or was that something you picked up later? Like, I think that makes such a big difference when it comes to what people actually see.

Oh, it's huge.

Yeah.

You know, I. I'd say really getting into scouting, where I put a ton of effort in it, I didn't really know that deer, that bucks had a tendency to return to their same summer ranges year in and year out for quite a while.

So.

So it's more like, hey, I'm gonna go into this spot where I've hunted deer, and I'm gonna just see what's kicking around in this spot that I like to haunt. And just. And so in. In many cases when I was younger, I would try to do it, like, in the middle of winter and stuff, and of course, there wouldn't be any. Any deer there. And then I think later, again, kind of that. That some of it's when you're free time, your available free time kind of overlaps with your knowledge of what to use that free time for.

Yeah.

Yeah. So, like, you grow out of your 20 something years of being down at the bars, being hungover, and you're like, well, it's a lot easier to wake up early in the morning in a. In the summer when you aren't partying, hadn't been partying the night before. And so all of a sudden, your free time aligns to. With your goals and your actual goals in life and your meaningful goals in life. And so, you know, I'd say probably my mid-20s, I started doing a lot more scouting. And. And at that same time, a lot of the research was starting to come online out of the Wyoming range and. And other places with these GPS collars indicating that these deer have high fidelity to their home ranges. And it was like, you know, anecdotally I've seen that I. I remember seeing bucks come back to the same spot and being like, I'm pretty sure that's the same buck I was hunting last year, but never really, like, had crappy optics for a lot of that time. And, like, you know, he couldn't really pick out those distinctions in those deer. And then moving forward in life, it's become, you know, one of those. It's kind of a. A marking of the seasons to be like, okay, it's June 20th, and I'm gonna start hitting the spots and see who's back.

Yeah.

You know, and. And it's so much fun. I mean, that's almost more fun than actually killing the deer is. Is going back and. And hitting those haunts and. And just, you know, generations of deer doing the same thing over and over again. It's just. It's wildly cathartic, you know, to, like, go and experience that. And it also kind of gives you. I think it gives you a broader sense of place in relation to, you know, what we're doing here.

Yeah, no, that's a good point, man. And it's one of those things where when you do spend a bunch of time scouting, I don't feel near as bad shooting a buck on opening day because I'm like, I got out here, I was able to. I had three hunting seasons over the summer, you know, like, I was out here so many days.

Yeah.

You get a roll in, and it's not like, oh, now it's over. It's like, this is why I was scouting, is so that hunting season can be fruitful, you know?

Yeah. It's. It's. It's funny. You know, I always, like many of my hunting seasons, particularly on elk, especially where. Where I don't do a lot of scouting, archery, elk. I have a knack for needing about 30 days to kill something. Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

And.

And so if I can get that behind me during scouting season, it. It doesn't. You're right. It doesn't feel bad. It's like, oh, you know, I. I put in the work earlier, and then you fill out Wyoming game and fishes survey, and, like, how many days did you hunt? How do I answer this?

Yeah, right. You know, like, you're like, I wish.

They had another box for. Did you scout? But, yeah, yeah, it's. It's essential. And it's. I think, looking back on it, you know, just about every deer that I've killed in the last decade plus was scouted up during scouting season. Yeah.

That's pretty sweet, man.

Yeah.

One of my favorites was. And it was right after the hard winter. But it just so happened. I mean, this. I don't think it's happened in the five or six years that I've lived in Lander, but we both killed our Bucks like the first couple days of archery season and you called me and showed me this freaking sweet 33 inch gnarly old buck and I was like, wait, I have a picture of that. And he was rutting like less than a mile or maybe a mile from where you killed him in the summer. That was pretty sweet. Do you think like can going out on the winter range tell you a whole lot or like do you think it's.

Dude, I totally, I totally think it can. Especially rut season around here where we don't have the big migrations. We have small migrations, you know, 5, 10 mile type migrations I think, and some bigger ones that where those deer in the South Pass region head, head south to the Red Desert. But, but for the most part we're pretty small in comparison to what we know in western Wyoming and a few other spots. And, and so I think that our, our rut occurs in pretty much very close to their summer range. If not in the case of that buckeye killed in 23, right over the top. Yeah, I mean he literally. Where you got a picture of him? I got, I spotted him up that year, you know, walking in his tracks of where you got a picture of him, you know, essentially. I mean for the most part.

Yeah.

Funny part about that buck too is I had seen him, he had such a distinct antlers. I had seen him in 2020.

Oh really?

Yeah, I was up, up there for, in that region for work and we popped over a ridge and out of a spring came buck with some kick, smaller kickers coming out both sides. And you know, at that time it was like, dang, that is a nice looking young buck because he just had that look of a young buck. And. And so I would have killed. That would have been fall of 20, 20 and then killed them fall 23. 23, yeah. And he was tooth age at eight and a half. So he would have been in that five and a half range when I saw him coming out of that spring, which is, you know, kind of interesting. I mean that spring wasn't far right, but just enough, I think just enough escape cover in that region and places for them to get away during hunting season. Just enough folds that, you know, he, he just figured out a strategy to, to get old in there.

It's one of the things I feel like we keep running into is like you talk to anybody really across the west especially, you know, you talk to the old timers in Wyoming and they're like people are slaughtering them all and, and we'll go back and see the same bucks year after year. I'm like, but they're not getting the ones we're looking at, I guess. Like, they, they're pretty. Yeah, they're pretty reliable. That, you know, at least most of them that you see, I feel like you could have seen the year before.

It's kind of funny. Yeah, that, that. And it's a great point is, you know, of the deer I've scouted up and watched and the ones that I either didn't get or chose to not shoot, a few have died by other hunters, but it's a small fraction of them. Yeah. You know, it's like, you know, maybe out of a decade of hunting, maybe I can think of two that died from other hunters.

One of them is me. Right, right.

Exactly. It's, it's, it's, it's interesting when you, you just kind of in, in this day and age, you see just about every deer that walks off the mountain one way or another, you know, especially when you're plugged in, like you and I are to the deer hunting scene, it. It seems to come back to you pretty quick. So it's, it is, it is wildly interesting to think like, you know, like, what has the biggest effect on the buck populations I'm looking at year to year, it's me, you, and my wife who also shoots some deer up there. Right?

Yeah.

And it's like, huh, okay.

Well, I don't know where everyone else.

Is, but yeah, I'm sure. I'm glad we get to do this every year.

Yeah.

You know, no joke.

Well, and this last year, you know, think harkening back to the antler point restriction. We were also talking about how it just discourages people, which is, you know, in some ways, if you're worried about the buck ratios, then, then great. You know, you're going to get fewer hunters, but I need to start running this ratio more often. But I created a buck to truck ratio this year, and I was like 23 to one. It was really good.

I was like, 23 bucks to one truck. Yeah. Yeah. Geez.

And I was like, gosh, this is sweet. Like, I, you know, I would wish that was a statistic we watch more because, gosh, I think, you know, they always talk about, like, when buck numbers or deer numbers in general are high, people don't notice crowding. And I think that that's probably the buck to truck ratio is like, you have a high buck to truck ratio. It feels way less crowded.

Interesting. Yeah. And I think in general hunt, as hunters were Louder and more obvious on the landscape than we were even 10 years ago. You know, the popularity of side by sides, especially. I mean, everyone's got one. Right. And we're almost like the exception of people out hunting. They're still banging around in our.

Our pickups.

Our pickups. Yeah. And walking. And I. I think people are, you know, in general, they're just more obvious on the landscape than they were even 10 years ago. Yeah. So. So that definitely, I think, can contribute to people's perception of crowding.

Yeah, I certainly don't feel it, at least in the places I've been.

No, no. And, yeah, it's. It's. It is an interest, the whole notion of crowding. I mean, it's kind of what I do for my day job at BLM is managed recreation psychology a little bit. And crowding is completely a. A construct of. Of.

It's like a psychological.

Yeah, it's a psychological construct. It's not necessarily a physical thing where you can say at this point on the landscape, a human's going to be sitting out here, or at this point of visitation, a human's going to be sitting out here and say, dang, this is crowded.

Right. You know, especially depending on where that human's from. Right, right.

Exactly.

It's.

It's variable from person to person. And quite frankly, I mean, I. When I'm especially deer hunting somebody on a road, I don't look at them as a threat whatsoever.

No.

In terms of potentially impacting my hunt. In fact, I'm pretty damn glad that that truck's moving on a road because they aren't up there with me.

And they're not glassing.

They're not glass.

Yeah.

I mean, that's. That's the thing that I think when you. You look at all those people on the landscape and like your. Your bucks to truck ratio, how many of those trucks that you see out there are actually stopping to even put optics up?

Very few.

Yep. And so the capability of those hunters drops. And then how many actually are good at glassing, who, like, you know, will grid an area, maybe like get out of their truck and put a set of binos on a tripod, you know, number goes down further, spotting scopes, number goes down further. And then just in general, people who've honed their craft at glassing, and you're talking a fraction of the hunters in general on the landscape. Now, culturally, that probably varies from area to area. I think western Wyoming, they probably are a little bit more dialed in their. Culturally and in how they hunt. Mule deer than. Yep, we are over here. And so you're going to see more of that. But still. Yeah, it's. It's amazing, isn't it?

Yeah. That's one of the things I've always told people about regions G and H. It's like there's, there's traditionally, you know, just historically the biggest deer like in the lower 48 PER as a percentage come out of there. But everybody who wants to hunt hard for a big buck also is a high percentage of people hunting there. You know, it's one of the better parts about hunting in a place where that's not a big red dot on the map. You know, whether it's, you know, the land area or like I went down to the Laramie area last year and hunted deer third day of no, second day of rifle season and I still didn't see anybody, you know, for three days. Yeah, I was just like, where is everybody? Do they know it's open? Am I wrong?

Yeah, that's when you start checking the regs be like, am I breaking the law here?

Yeah, exactly. So we've talked a lot about buck ratios and I think, you know, especially on the back of Utah, lowering their buck ratios in a half their general units, OR just increased their buck ratios a little bit in their management plan. I think there's a lot of conversation about it like is it worthwhile as a management tool? What do you think? Like, I mean it's, there's a lot of history with that, but there's a lot of scuttlebutt like do we even care about buck ratios?

Yeah, well, it's a loaded question because you know, in, in. In our group, group of folks that died in the wool meal deer hunters, you kind of have a divergence there, right? You have the ones who believe that the higher the ratio, the better the big buck hunting is going to be. Period, end of story. It's black and white. And then that, you know, the pesky thing about science is it doesn't operate by on anecdote and you know, your past experiences that you've had as a hunter and that research is kind of showing that particularly in that. In that Utah is that those as buck to do ratios. I think the, like the, the point where of concern starts is in that that 20 bucks per hundred dough that they've documented not only reduction in the amount of fat on the deer that they're monitoring, but also reduced productivity in their herds. Now there's a lot of contrasting research to that and there's a Lot of science, like fundamental science that indicates that there's does and bucks are separate except.

For one month out of the year. Right?

So, so, so there's some contrasting science there, no doubt. But my, my thought to that is we might as well try something, right? You know, and because managing for super high buck to dough ratios, it isn't working to recover deer and you know, bring these herds back into higher production levels. And so I don't think it hurts to try stuff and particularly when trying things that are, provide more opportunity to hunters. You know, the whole reason we as hunters hunt wildlife is to stabilize the populations over time. You know, round off the peaks, round off the valleys in their, their numbers and provide this nice stable stabilizing effect to the herds so that they stay below carrying capacity. But they're robust so they can, they can ride out a severe winter and be okay. They can, they can ride out other, other climatic situations such as drought and not deplete their habitat for forever or I shouldn't say for forever, but for a much longer period of time into their future. And so to me it's like, why not? I don't see a reason not to. I also think that, you know, let's just take, set aside the, the Utah research and what that's saying and just, just look at it anecdotal, Anecdotally from a buck to buck competition, less bucks on the landscape mean those bucks from year to year are going to maximize their year to year forage intake and they're going to maximize their year to year potential antler growth. So to me, I just, I don't see a downside of reducing, taking those buck to doe ratios down lower, particularly on a experimental basis. And if we see that the assumptions from the Utah work is, is credible and you see deer populations actually increasing like all the better. Like now hunting serving exactly the tool that it has always meant to serve as a way to benefit, as a ecological benefit to the species we hunt. And I, I mean I, I think also that now I'm guilty as charged on this. So like when I look to hunt other areas I recently hunted central Colorado, I tend to get overly focused on buck to do ratios when I'm area shopping in another state and it's like, well, I want to maximize my opportunity. But there is something to be said about those low buck to do ratios, low density deer populations where you really have an opportunity to find something special. And I, I, you know, transferring that to the elk license I had this year, I really think that the, I Had a special elk license. It's pretty hard to draw in an area where you guide. And I really think that look, looking over a lot of the elk that in, in there, I think the, the densities are pretty high in that, that area. And, and your likelihood of picking up something really special has been reduced over time because we've allowed that bull to cow ratio to go so high. And, and you know, like you look at some of our heroes over the years, the, the big buck and bull killers. And one that comes to mind is Chuck Adams. And I distinctly remember an article of his and where he, one of his advice, his pieces of advice of finding big bucks in big bowls is seek out places where they're in low density or just establishing. Right. And the reason that is, is those animals are finding a, a niche that hasn't been used by that wildlife in a long time. And so they have a potential to maximize nutrition and, and grow big antlers, so to speak. So there's something to be said about low, low buck to do ratios. Even though it's a, it's a hard thing to look at as a hunter and be like, yes, I'm going to go to a place that has load buck to do ratios and do what I love to do, which is hunt mule deer. And the, the thing about meal deer hunting, that's the most boring times and just the biggest grind are those glassing days where you see nothing.

Dude. And they happen though.

Yeah.

Guys, you know what they're doing.

Yep.

You happens.

You gotta have zero donut glassing days to see big bucks. It's just part of the formula. But yeah, I think that's the hesitation of everyone with going to these low buck to dough ratios is you may go out and you may see a lot of does, but you may see one or two bucks, you know.

Yeah.

Like, but the likelihood of those being something really special can, can be increased that way. So I, I mean I, I, I applaud Utah and taking that risk. And it's, it obviously hasn't made them super popular among our community or, or I should say a part of our community. Yeah. But, but I, I think if we're going to recover mule deer populations, we got to start talking about unique ways to do that. And we certainly can't just double down on what we've been doing because it isn't working. Yeah.

And just to, I have like 2 comments there. Like one thing, when you're talking about bringing buck populations lower, you know, Wyoming, I was, I've watched all the biologist Presentations. And there's like two herds in the state, maybe three that are below 20.

Right.

So Wyoming's real conservative. Most of the recreational management objectives is 20 to 29, which for some states, that's like their limited code of stuff.

Right.

Like in Oregon, that is their limited stuff. And then you'll see like our special stuff is 30s, the 40s, you know, like out here there's a really special unit that they were like, they're like, we have a low sample size, but we saw 76 bucks per or no, 96. 96 bucks per hundred. I was like, oh, so like as many bucks as you saw dose. Like that's pretty crazy. Yeah. But so yeah, just to add context, like, you know, you're talking about a lower ratio being maybe at that lower end of 20 or upper teens. You have like Montana, they, they might push it a little tight on the other end in single digits. 8, 9, 10, which is when, if. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's when the does might start not getting bred fully, right?

Yeah, that's the, the majority of the research. And, and again, like I, I have to caveat with this is I didn't start down the path of believing like when I started mule deer hunting and, and even later on in my mule deer hunting career, I, I was in the restricted hunts make bigger bucks and like anything we can do to restrict the harvest of the common hunter will make bigger bucks. But over time I've, I've just like, I've witnessed things in my own hunting hunting career and then, and then just being fortunate to along the way meet a lot of mentors both in Wyoming game and fish. Gary Freilich is one. He manages a lot of the Wyoming range deer herd and, and then mentors in the research department. Kevin Monteith, Dr. Monteith out of the Monty's shop. And then Dr. Matt Kaufman, the migration initiative and building that crew of mentorship and then volunteering for deer captures and habitat enhancements. You just make connections with these people. And over time, if you were to plot it on a graph, it's like my anecdotal experience in, in my hunting career kind of started to merge with what I was learning in the science realm. And, and I started to really turn around to this idea of like, in like this particular instance with buck to doe ratios, the research is pretty resounding that we can decrease those buck to doe ratios down to single digits, such as nine, eight bucks per hundred doe. And all the does will still get pregnant. So when we talk about Sustainability of buck hunting. That's that mark like buck hunting remains sustainable for herd productivity down to 9 bucks per 100 dose. So when we're talking about 30 bucks per 100 doe is 3 times.

Yeah, we got 3 times as many bucks as we need.

3 times what's sustainable. So you know, it, it's really hard for me to then turn that around and, and look, look at and see a need for reducing opportunity further.

Yeah. And in some cases, like depending on the area, depending on the research you're looking at, that's where they actually are saying maybe we should crank it up a notch.

Yeah. Yeah. And it, you know, I. That Utah stuff is, is super compelling to me and where I think it might have some validity is in these systems where does and bucks are. Their life cycles are overlapping a lot.

On top of each other.

Yeah. I tend to think the lander deer that I've hunted, I get a sense there's a lot of overlap there.

Yeah.

And, and so I mean they still are capable of segmenting, but there's more overlap than there is say in the Wyoming range where the big bucks are at the tops of the mountain and they are for most of till, you know, mid October and then they come down and the does have been at near the water sources and in the lower country for some time and where. So. So I think that Utah stuff might, you know, as time goes on we may find that there's some site specific validity to it that has been, you know, discounted because of the bulk of the research is done on these big mountain herds and these big, big migratory herds.

Hey everybody. I hope you're enjoying the show. I wanted to take a minute to make sure that you knew about the Hunt west services being offered in 2025. If you have a hunt that's coming up that you would like, help e scouting on planning your hunt logistics or otherwise looking at your gear list and making sure you're dialed for your upcoming adventure. Be sure to reach out to jadenuntwest.net yep, that's me. We can get together and figure out a great time to do a session, create a full hunt plan, itinerary or otherwise craft something that's going to fit your needs so that you can go out in 2025 and have the best hunt yet. I really enjoy being part of this process with people and watching them learn and grow. So feel free to reach out at any time. I'm happy to help. All right, let's get back to the show. You're listening to the Hunt west podcast. That's a great point though. I mean like the half dozen years I've gone up to the region, G and H, stuff you don't see does like you just don't. And it's totally a. I think it's partially what makes it such a good experience for hunters is like when you're fine, when you see a deer body through your spot and scope, it's probably a buck. Yeah, 100, which is pretty sweet. But I didn't even think about that just how back down here, like in the low stuff. Yeah, it's. It's anyone's guess what you're gonna see when you find a deer body. When before you get the spotter on it. That's interesting. The other piece of that, you know, you're talking about, you're talking about how Utah's maybe trying this lower ratio. I do like the fact that they are doing it kind of like on an experimental basis 100% they're looking at that versus higher ratios and stuff because like you said, there's a lot that we don't really know yet. Right. But on the same coin we do know some things to be true. We've been studying mule deer hunting and buck hunting and dough hunting for over 100 years. Right, right.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean that's. Yeah. It's interesting in that, you know, the research is pre. Has been pretty continuous that how we hunt bucks doesn't affect our herds. And you talk to any biologist and they're going to tell you that. But we as hunters have done an excellent job of brow beating them to manage for much higher levels and restrict opportunity.

One thing I'm. I'm starting to notice, you know, and I listen to guys like Robbie Denning and Travis Hobbs a lot and I'm almost wondering and I want your take on this like the limited quota hunts. I've had the fortunate opportunity to go and like scout and guide some of these like really high end heart, you know, max point, kite draw areas in Wyoming. And I will say it is a lot easier to find a four year old, four point, you know, something like 140 to 160. Like you could probably get one of those from the truck, you know. And it's really hard to do that in a general unit but depending on where you're at, but it sure doesn't seem like the top end. You know, the bucks that we're looking for, the ones that like go that next level, I don't feel like they're necessarily more numerous.

Do you in limited quota.

In the limited quota stuff, I mean, or the tightly managed stuff. Right. Because you're talking like west wide. You'll have the same example with general season Utah versus the Henry or Pontigans, you know.

Yeah. Yeah. It's an interesting question. I, I have to admit I, I've never drawn a limited quoted deer tag in Wyoming. I've put in for a lot of years and so I, I've never fully been able to experience a limited coat of deer tag in Wyoming which that unto itself is a, I think a resounding support of general deer over the counter deer licenses. But I digress on that. But I'm out in those, those limited quota areas a lot and I look at a lot of deer in those areas, be it for work or just, just out of interest.

Yeah.

For example, where I had the elk license this year as a limited quoted very coveted lemon coated deer. And so in Wyoming I haven't seen deer coming from limited quota areas. And when we say limited quota areas, I think it's important to, to caveat that by saying these are areas that the deer herd is primarily supported by the area within the hunt unit.

Right. Not counting on your D boys or big Sandy hunts.

Right, right. Sure. Basically you're hunting resident deer during resident deer during the time that resident deer are there. I don't, I, I'm not seeing, I don't see bigger bucks than I see in general areas in those. And I don't see a, a harvest that would reflect that there's bigger deer being killed in those areas. Yeah. Now those people may be, you know, it require, it probably requires less work.

To kill a nice one.

A nice one. You know, and the type of deer that you or I spend 30 days digging out of the landscape and then, and then, you know, getting is the type of deer that the average hunter can, can find through a tour day force down down roads and stuff. And so I really don't see the hurt like buck size especially performing any better in those, in those units. And then moreover, a really interesting part, most of our limited quota hunts in Wyoming from just a herd performance standpoint. So doe to fawn ratios and population trend aren't performing any better than their, their neighbors that are over the counter general general licenses.

Matter of fact, a lot of times they're worse.

Much worse. Yeah. Yeah.

There's some limited quota stuff up by Cody and it is doing way worse than the, the general stuff. And I'm not saying it is the causation. Right. I'm not saying General seasons. Cause deer populations always do better. But yeah, you can see it on the landscape right now. Like the better deer herds in Wyoming right now are, Are not limited.

And it's, it's funny because growing up here, there's a specific limited quota area that I've wanted for deer.

Have you put in for that every year?

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I've been putting in for, for it going on 30 plus years.

So I was thinking about putting in for it and then I remembered that you haven't drawn it. And I was like, I think we wouldn't be friends anymore.

I've watched so many of my co workers draw it two or three times and friends draw it. It wouldn't even, it wouldn't even phase me at this point. But the funny thing about it is, and I've thought about this a lot, is if I do draw it, and this is going to sound weird to anybody, but folks like you and I who intimately know the area we, we hunt and get to hunt. You're in and you're out.

Yeah.

If I draw it, it's almost going to be a bit of a curse because it's like a, the, the dog that chased the truck every day finally caught the truck and it's like, what the hell am I going to do with this? Yeah, because I, I don't know it as well as I know here. And so like, I don't know those little hidey holes where a buck gets to maturity, you know, where, where they get some age underneath them. I don't know those spots that they go back to every summer to, you know, browse on, say on bitter brush and, and hit some lush Forbes. So it'd be just like starting over. And. Yeah, I have. Let's see, I was 14 when I started. 42 now. So I have 38 years of hunting experience in this, in this area. It's hard to just leave that behind and, and go off into what amounts to, you know, a little bit of the unknown.

Yeah. I mean, I only have six years of hunting here and I don't put in for limited quota deer tags because I enjoy the haunts. You know, put him for a whitetail tag that I still haven't drawn.

Yeah, same.

Same problem, different taste.

But I, I tell you from, from my perspective growing up, I really think about that, how my trajectory as a person, what motivates me, who I am today, is so much. Has so much been forged by being able to participate in that hunt every year.

Yeah.

I don't know where I would be if, if it was a situation where I could only draw it like one in 10 years, you know, I mean, or worst case scenario, you know, I haven't drawn a mule deer hunt in the last 30 plus years, you know, I, I don't think I would have continued hunting. I certainly wouldn't have become an advocate for mule deer and their habitat. You know, a lot of the extremely positive things in my life have come from being able to challenge yourself to do that year in and year out. And it's that, that alone really motivates me to try to do what we can to keep these hunt units around here over the counter or general season for, for resident hunters.

Yeah. I even think about it from like a non resident perspective because I talk to so many guys. Like, I love it when someone finds a one or two point area. I got a friend, Pete, he's gone back to the same spot in central Wyoming four or five times in the last six years and he's done really well out there and I just love it. I love following on because Pete's like, yeah, this is my spot, you know, and he's a non resident and is choosing the same thing. He goes out for a scout trip every summer and then finds the bucks and is learning them. I think like you said, it just, it totally shapes how, I mean, gives you a lot of adventure, gives you a lot of purpose in the summer, like direct the activities you do. So it's important.

Yeah. And in that case with your friend Pete like that, that's an example of a connection to a landscape that has immense benefits over time for the landscape, the habitat and deer. That person's going to be an advocate for that landscape and for, for the deer habitat it provides. And so, you know, to lose that connection to landscape and remove people from that landscape, I think it very much becomes at the risk of whatever wants to consume it, be it us as humans having ever growing demand to consume landscapes for our needs, to keep the lights on or to keep podcast machines going, for example.

But yeah, or even just expanding houses, you know, that kind of thing.

Right. So. So I do think, I firmly believe that hunting creates advocates for landscapes in a way that other outdoor recreation activities just don't. So.

No, that makes, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, so one of the last things that I thought you might have some input on is for people planning hunts. Do you ever go back and look at, you know, fawn data or deer? You know, we got some good fat data now.

Yeah.

Do you ever go back and look at that, and think, oh, the, you know, try to project or plan a hunt based on what you're seeing.

I think that's the secret sauce. Especially in, you know, in this, we're living in this realm where everybody complains about how hard it is to draw a license.

Yeah.

You know, across the West. Oh yeah. And, and then there's a large majority of people that want to reduce our opportunity further to draw a license. Of course. And that's kind of a funny scenario. But, but the idea of the, the concept of the hidden gem units. Right. The. Everybody knows there's big deer on the Henry Mountains, for example, but there's one license given out for the non resident archery license on the Henry Mountains. I play play for that one license sometimes. But, but my strategy in Utah has been to just like shoot for the fences and, and just swing for the fences maybe one day. Yeah, maybe now based on their license increases, I may be changing that. But. Yeah, but like states like Colorado, for example, where at least for now there's a lot of incentive to make sure you're using your points every, you know, three to five years watching tea things that. So the fawn to doe ratio is a really good indicator of the health of, of the does. So for example, we have right now in the Wyoming range, we're having amazing fondue ratios after mule deer days, which mealy fanatics put on two weekends ago. I went to one of those seminars there and Rebecca Rafferty with the Monteith shop was presenting on some of the metrics that they monitor deer down there in the Wyoming range. And. But she was showing the fond to do ratios first off. And I believe we are in the 80s. This, this counts. So deer that were in the. This would be fawns that were in the womb and nursing in the winter of 23 24. When fond of dough ratios increase. That means those moms had a lot of fat on them and they were very successful at what they did, raising those fawns. Now a lot of Dr. Monteith's research indicates that the size of an adult buck, so his, his antler size is predicated on the health of his mom when he was in the womb.

Do you remember what percentage? Like it's a big percentage. Yeah.

I've heard as high as 40% of their antler mass is predicated on that.

Yeah. So that's like a difference. I'm not going to do great public math, but it's like a 120 versus 180 by.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So if, if you're Just seeing fawn to dough ratios alone and you start seeing spikes and increases, you can start to project that into out years of like, well, four or five years from now when these, these buck fawns are hitting maturity, there's a high likelihood of having some really big bucks on the landscape because they can hit their genetic potential versus deer that have, you know, been in the womb when the mom wasn't in great condition. The mom pulled through lactating, but she still wasn't in good condition. And they just weren't getting the nourishment. They just aren't gonna hit that their full potential, that they're just gonna stay stunted both in antler size and body size. And it's an interesting adaptation. I don't know if you call it an adaptation or not, but it's an interesting way that deer, they reduce that luxury tissue so antler and body size in order to need less from their landscape. And, and so it's a way for them to persist. But that manifests to us big buck hunters as being like, oh, all the deer are small here, something like that in, in those cases. But so, so looking at that fawn to doe ratio five years back from when you're gonna hunt, four to five years back from when you're going to hunt. So let's see, it's 2025. So we look at that fond doe ratio in 2020, that could give us a really good clue, especially if we see an area that, okay, we, we've done our homework on what it takes to draw one of these units in Colorado. It takes maybe three points. Whatever we're, that's where we're at. We're at three points in Colorado and we look back five years. You know, first we've, we've filtered out all those ones that we can draw and then we start diving into those fawn to doe ratios five years ago. And if we have areas that have high fond doe ratios, the likelihood of having big bucks now, when we're going to go hunting next year is going to be higher than in areas with low fondue ratios. And it's kind of a function of two things. One is the fat, those what they call maternal effects that I mentioned earlier. The other is you just have more animals, young animals on the landscape kind of saturating that. So more are gonna make it to that adult age class. So that's a really good technique. And then if, if you, if like we have, which is a great resources, the, the research the Monty shop does of what those fat Levels are of does. Now you're really talking like coupling that with fond dough ratios, some real secret sauce in terms of projecting what that trophy quality could be in the year you're going to draw.

Yeah.

So it's. Yeah, I think that information is, is kind of the next level of like if I was going to build a filter that sifted through data for hunters to find some of those hidden gems, if you will, which gets thrown around a lot. Right. In the hunting world, I would be looking heavily at fond dough ratios and if available, fat levels of the toes because that could really project what you're going to be looking at.

Yeah, no, that makes total sense. It first popped into my mind back in 2021. Well really 22. But I killed a buck in 2020. That was five and a half. I killed a buck in 2021. That was six and a half. And I was like, oh, they were born the same year. And I look back in like 2015 was a good fun year. And I was like, oh, that makes sense. Like, yep, yep. That of course, like there'd be more in that age class. Like even getting to that older age, one of them wasn't that six and a half year old deer didn't throw a whole lot for antlers, but it was also in the middle of the drought. So I guess you also have year to year environmental factors and unfortunately when you're planning hunts, you can't really predict what's going to happen in June and July or May. June, July, for antler growth. But yeah, at least you get the other variable you can factor in.

Yeah, you can, you can isolate that. Another thing that's you can hopefully do if, if the data's there is not just look at five years back, but just look at that trend in that period when. So five years would be kind of the minimum where. Yeah, you know, we, a lot of the research indicates that they're hitting their antler potential at five and a half. But now go back and like look back three years from that. So 2019, 2018, 2017, even 20, 20, 2021, start looking in that range and see what the trend is. And if you're looking at a trend, an increasing trend in fond dough ratios and you have that fat data there and the trend is going up in that time period.

That's. That's a good indicator.

Yeah, that's, that's. You're looking at a pure gold opportunity there.

Yeah, I really like it. Especially as we get more information about how big antlers actually get when they're old. You know, you would, you would just sent me a screenshot from biology, a biologist presentation of a place in Wyoming where deer are getting to 5, 6 and 7 and are looking pretty spindly. And I was just like, yeah, I mean, that must be a factor of, you know, whatever they have going with their mothers and their. Their environmental factors.

Oh, man. That I would admit. I was watching those YouTube presentations. So Wyoming Game and Fish records their YouTube presentations on a yearly basis for their. Their season proposals. And each region. I don't know how many regions there are.

God, there's a lot of regions. Yeah. Or like each district does it. There's seven regions and there's subdistricts and each district does one.

So there's a lot of YouTube material. But I couldn't sleep one night, so I was watching it all, and that slide from that region popped up and looked at it, and they were these extremely. Oh, in terms of mule deer. Old bucks, I think the youngest was five and a half, right?

Yeah.

Pictures of. There must have been four or five deer on that slide.

Yeah.

And they, they were all cementa maged. And so they had very accurate ages on them. And they were all old, but they just weren't producing the antlers. Like, I mean, we talk about this a lot over here. A five and a half, a six and a half and above mule deer over here just isn't going to do the antlers that they are on the other side of the divide.

I mean, that's just not on average.

No. And when we say the other side of the divide, west of us over into western Wyoming.

Yeah.

But even these deer in. In this, in the slide were a next level down from what we look at as older age class deer.

Yeah, for sure.

And it was, it was just. I think what I. What I texted you was where I'd hunted in Colorado. One of the things that I had assumed was maybe some of that was at play, why people were saying that that place had just had too much pressure and there weren't any big bucks left. And it's like if. If in that location in Colorado people were seeing those. Those bucks, like, was on that slide.

They would say they all need an extra year.

They need more time. They need more time.

I'm like, dude, there's seven. Yeah.

One was seven and a half. And it looked like, like what we would characterize as like a three and a half year old. Yep. You know, so it was, it was wildly fascinating me to look at that and just think like, man, there's. There's something in that, that those maternal effects that really put a suppressive, have a suppressive effect on that older age class buck quality. And so you know that that's something that I think challenging your listeners on, if you haven't already, is to cement a major deer.

Yeah, yeah. If anyone wants information on cement imaging, like I think it's Oregon and Wyoming, offer it for free. And then you can always send it into Matson's or dearage.com and like go get it done too. Um, and I gotta bring you over, you're, you've got a key of deer jaws too and I gotta bring you over mine from last year. But that way you're matching up cement imaging to the, to the molarware. Real quick, what have you found, like comparing those two things? Are you very accurate? You feel like molarware?

It's funny. And the only reason I started doing this is because so often you'll talk to somebody who killed the buck and attack. They'll take it to a taxidermist or they'll take it to game and fish check station and they'll say, well the taxidermist or the game fish, game warden age this at four and a half, five and a half. It's like, oh, did, did, did, did they take a teeth, a tooth and, and do cement imaging? Well, no, they just kind of looked at its molars. Like man, I, you know, I want to see what this molar things about. So what I've done over the years as I got more into aging deer, I've kept every set of molars of the deer that both me and my wife have killed. And we have three and a half, a four and a half, a five and a half, a six and a half and then an eight and a half year old deer. And so there's literature that basically uses a key to compare known ages of deer and their molar wear. And you can kind of start looking at how that molar wear should occur given consistent environmental conditions. Now that's also a bit in question because you know, some deer just are chewing on plants that wear their molars quicker. Right. But what I've found is at least some consistency among, you know, all these deer are from this general region. Okay. So there's some consistency there. And, and I would say to like anybody who gets like, if you get a deer molar aged and the person who's doing that doesn't pull out some sort of key with a set of their own molars from known age deer, they probably aren't Giving you any, you know, they're just putting you on.

Yeah.

You know, and, and so I feel like I can get it closer now.

What's closer? Like within two years.

Yeah, I, I think, I think I can get within two years pretty good with, with molarware. Absent any anomalies, right? Yeah. And usually I tend to, I always tend to guess younger. Just it's kind of the conservative nature of, of my guesses. But, but yeah, like, like that eight and a half year old. I didn't know the age of that right away. And when I looked at the molars, I have to look back in my notes, what I wrote down, but I think I guessed him at seven and a half.

Okay.

So, but once I get that old.

I mean, you're like, I don't know, he was old, though. You know, like, you're kind of like.

Yeah, at some point and it's kind of that. Six and a half. Seven and a half. You're just kind of saying old, you know, and. Yeah, but yeah, it's, it's, it's just kind of a fun thing. I like having those molars with it just to kind of add an extra element of just kind of a good little trinket to throw along with the deer skulls and, and to hang on to. And then, of course, the cementum aging is, I think that's such an enjoyable part of the hunt now for me.

Yep.

That I, I just like, will not leave an animal on age that I kill.

I'm right there with you. I even get all my clients and stuff age now because it's like it's Christmas when you find out. You're like, oh, what is it? What is it?

Holy crap.

You know, that was way off or. I was right on, you know, it's fun. That's really fun.

It is, it is. It's a lot of fun. And it, and it gives you the other thing it does that I think is super important as a, if you aspire to be like a trophy hunter in this day and age, it gives you some context of what the potential of landscape is. And there you're hunting, you know. Yeah, I, I, I think about all the deer, the big meal deer I've hunted over the years, who, the ones that got away and everything. And, you know, and for the longest time, I, I was in the game of, you know, being very focused on inches of antler and thinking about inches of antler as the measure. And over time, maybe it's, I don't know, come with age or whatever, but I've, I've certainly moderated to that, to just thinking about like I want to get the oldest deer on landscape. That that's my goal, hunting every year. And, and I don't think I've, I've hit it many years. But, but old, old age critters are at their trophy potential and there may be habitat conditions and changes to their habitat that will just never allow them to be a 200 inch giant. Giant. Right. But you're still killing like that 200 inch deer that somebody killed in the Arizona strip, that's five and a half is as savvy and maybe even less savvy than the five and a half year old you killed on a over the counter license hunt boy.

Isn't that true?

You know, so, so you're doing something more I think by killing an old age class deer on an over the counter hunt than the guy who, you know, regardless of its inches of antler, than the guy who killed 200 inch deer on a very limited quota license or the Jimmy John's guy for example.

Yeah, yeah.

For sure he's probably killing some old age class critters but he's got a.

Lot of help get there.

Right?

Yeah, right. Yeah, you know, that's for sure.

So it's, I, I think that that age and a lot of hunters I think would find, particularly those of us in the trophy buck realm would find some renewed joy about deer hunting if we focus less on inches antler, more on age.

Well, yeah, that's definitely, you know, and, and Robbie Denning talks about this. When you've got deer, low deer numbers and you're just having a hard time because at some point if you are looking for antlers, it's just going to take one that the landscape's ability to throw it, but also numbers of deer.

Yeah, right.

You got to find an anomaly. And when you don't have anomalies to look at, you know, maybe just finding that the old one, that is the next step, you know, to be, to be having some selectivity. That's super fun.

Yeah. And the other part about that is if, if you're hunting a landscape year in, a year out and you're finding the older age class deer, eventually you'll find the anomalies. Right. Because you found the places where things get old. And so now it's not only just a game of numbers each year of looking at deer, it's also a game of numbers over generations.

Yeah.

And so at some point you're gonna look in that same spot where You've seen older age class deer and there's going to be something special there at a level that you know exceeds anything you've ever hunted in your lifetime.

Yeah.

And that's, that's the joy of being able to, you know, hunt these places year in and year out.

Yeah. That's what keeps the guys coming back, though, you know, it's just like, you never know and you might find them, but then you still got to kill them.

Yeah.

You know, like it's all. That's what I was chasing a big, big one a couple years ago and I still, I spent like 15 glassing sessions looking for him last summer. Never found him again.

I remember that. That was, that was a superb deer. And that was again one of those ones that showed up after that severe winter.

Yeah.

Right. And, and then you were looking for them last year and, and you did the. What you got to do to find big bucks. You spent how many days?

Yeah, it ended up being like seven. It ended up being 17 days. And then I, I went and talked to the landowner, like that was like a mile and a half down the drainage and asked him if I'd saw it. And first I got accused of trying to haunt him. And I was like, well, not on your place, you know, like, I'm not trying to haunt him on your place because I know you don't offer any access, but he goes, yeah, he's under the apple tree. I was like, oh, no. So he was living on the, on the, on the private. Last year.

Oh, so you did.

I confirmed he was still alive last year. Yeah.

Huh.

But I just wasn't glassing their front porch.

Of the, of those 17 days, how many deerless days did you have there?

Well, that was maybe a unique place in that there's always bucks.

Okay.

There was like seven bucks that were there every day.

Gotcha.

Yeah. And actually we ended up killing one of those gray ended up going and killing one of the other bucks. But there's still three or four other up and comers that I'm like, all right, we'll be back, you know.

Yeah.

So that's the fun part. Like you said, you got a place you can go back to the well.

Yeah, yeah. And it's, it's amazing how I don't, I mean, I, I hate to say this too loud for other hunters to hear, but I, I still don't think other hunters are connecting the dots on that. They think they, especially around here and now, like there's a little bit more randomness to it of Course in western Wyoming and particularly that later season in the southern part of the range. Oh, yeah. But I, there's a lot of hunters that don't realize that your biggest clue for where a big buck lives is seeing a big buck.

That's right. That's right.

Like you see him in. Well, like the buck that I hunted last year that unfortunately hit with an arrow and lost. I'd seen him several years in a row, but I saw him first for the first time on his summer range. I believe it was the end of June.

Oh, dang. You know, you watched him like all summer.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and so like, and I, I just knowing deer hunters, a lot of deer hunters, and haven't talked to a lot of deer hunters around here, if they were to see that buck in the area, like say, see it cross a road in front of them, I think they would assume that it was just kind of a one off and. Yeah, it wouldn't, it wouldn't flip a switch to be like, oh, maybe I should look here, you know, and, and I've, I've opened my ears to the idea of like, you know, because with my job, I interact with a lot of people who are out on the landscape and if somebody tells me they saw a big deer, like, I don't even take time to evaluate if they know what a big deer is. Because if they're seeing a buck antler that they feel like that, or, excuse me, a buck mule deer that they feel like had big enough antlers that it's worth mentioning to me. There's probably other bucks in the area.

That's right.

And it's probably a buck pasture that has a high likelihood of having some big deer on it, particularly when we like to hunt them in, in archery season. So it's. Yeah, it's kind of an interesting thing that I don't think a lot of hunters realize is that they have extreme, extreme high fidelity to return to their ranges every year.

Well, that, that nice buck, my best buck I killed in 22, found him July 16 and got him on October 15. You know, it's just like that same thing. They love their home range. Yeah, they love it so. Well, good stuff, man. Thank you so much for taking the time. Do you have any place that you'd like to send people, whether it's conservation or whatever?

Oh, great. Great question.

Like if they want to make a difference or. Yeah, something you're, you're, both of us are really passionate about it. It's like that's what you do when you're not working.

Obviously the, the obvious ones are the conservation orgs that, that do good work for habitat. I mean there's a lot of them. But one that I think people don't realize that they can support. And I think a lot of times we think academic institutions have money flowing out of their ears, you know. But one that I don't think a lot of people realize they can support is the Monteith shop. And they're really doing cutting edge work not just for Wyoming, but for ungulate ungulates in general. Some of their work includes the stuff we've talked about with the Wyoming range, which is just absolutely fascinating work and it's going to change how we manage mule deer there for forever. And it's, and it's, it's going to hit that. It's going to help us to hit that sweet spot of providing opportunity and sustaining deer populations into the future. Some of their other work includes monitoring monitoring of bighorn sheep populations and identifying areas where, particularly with bighorn sheep, you know, they're into these isolated little islands of their former range of habitat. And so you really have to be careful with overshooting the carrying capacity of landscape and, and then you have the pneumonia issues. They've done a lot of really good research that's driving some of our management here recently in both the Jackson region and the Seminoles for, for sheep, where we're actually providing you sheep hunts opportunity to people in order to keep that, keep that herd below carrying capacity and reduce the prevalence of disease. And so I can't pump their work enough. And, and if people want to make a unique donation to something that goes directly towards research that that's one of those unique opportunities that I don't think people think about too often.

But no, that's a great point. I'll put that in the show notes too.

Cool.

So, yeah, I'll put a link down there. I know they've got an event that this podcast won't be out for, but they usually have like different raffles and ways you can support them too, that you could get something from. From it too.

Yep. They, they're doing a commissioner's license raffle in partnership with Muley fanatics, who does a lot of great mule deer work in Wyoming and wildlife work in general. And then they're also doing an event in Laramie tomorrow. So. And I think that's going to be the model of the future as agency budgets get squeezed and a lot of this research depends on federal funding that may or may not be available. Into the future. And so if, if research is important to us and kind of as, as hunters, if we believe in the North American conservation model where our hunting provides an ecological surface service to the species we hunt and is good for the species we hunt, their research allows us to maximize that opportunity and, and maximize the benefit that our hunting has on, on the wildlife. And so. So I can't, I can't promote them enough. I think they do fantastic work.

No, I totally agree. I'll also drop some links to their different studies and stuff too, just because we've been referencing them so much. I think it's really cool. If anyone actually wants to nerd out, they could spend a lot of time doing some reading.

Oh, yeah.

Yep. That's cool.

Sure.

Well, thank you again. Appreciate it, man.

You bet. You bet.

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