This episode is a heartfelt tribute to Wayne Carlton, whose passion and expertise in elk calling have influenced generations. Listen as Scott Watley hosts Wayne, along with guests Donnell Johnson and Lisa Thompson, who provide personal insights into Wayne’s impact in the field. Whether you’re a seasoned hunter or new to the sport, Wayne’s teachings on mastering the art of calling and the subtle nuances of engaging with wildlife are timeless lessons that elevate the outdoor experience.
SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome to Sportsman of Colorado, Colorado’s premier outdoor radio show heard every Saturday afternoon on KLZ 560 with insights on hunting, fishing, archery, guns, and ammo from Colorado’s top outfitters featuring the industry’s leading experts on how to enhance your experience in the great outdoors. Now, here’s your host, Scott Watley.
SPEAKER 06 :
Welcome to Sportsman Colorado. Thank you so much for joining us today. Hey, we’ve got a great show for you. We are going to kick it off with something vastly different. Let me just put it that way. But this week, I tell you, when I got the call that we had really lost a great one. The elk hunting community and truly in the world of the outdoors lost a true pioneer this week with the passing of Wayne Carlton. A legend in the elk hunting and elk calling world. I was looking earlier today at something Corey Jacobson wrote of Elk 101. And Corey put it this way. He was truly one of the original pioneers of elk calling. And he said, you know, he doesn’t realize, hey, we wouldn’t think there’s too many elk hunters that don’t know the name Wayne Carlton. For over 40 years, his passion and influence on elk calling and elk Elk hunting never dimmed, and generations of elk hunters owe a part of their love for the sport to those who paved the way, and one of those would be Wayne Carlton. He certainly will be missed, but his legacy will not be forgotten, and that is a good way to put it. Fortunately, Wayne was with us several times. This interview we’re going to play comes from August, I believe, of 2018. And Lisa Thompson, Danelle Johnson, friends of our show, and they’re with Hunt Divas and Hunt Data Maps. They were in studio with us and actually made the first introduction to me with Wayne, so I appreciate that. We had Wayne in. They were coming here for a big weekend with Bass Pro and going to be doing some seminars on the following Saturday and Sunday. But when I just went back and listened to this the other day after I got the call about Wayne’s passing, I was like, man, I’d really love just to play this just to honor him. And man, what a great guy, a fun guy, super funny. And so we’re going to play that interview, portion of that interview, I should say, here on today’s show. So once again, this is from a past recording in 2018 with the man, Wayne Carlton.
SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome to Sportsman of Colorado, Colorado’s premier outdoor radio show heard every Saturday afternoon on KLZ 560 with insights on hunting, fishing, archery, guns, and ammo from Colorado’s top outfitters featuring the industry’s leading experts on how to enhance your experience in the great outdoors. Now, here’s your host, Scott Watley.
SPEAKER 06 :
Welcome to Sportsman of Colorado. Thank you so much for joining us today. My name is Scott Watley, and we appreciate you being with us. Don’t forget now, if you miss us on Saturdays from 1 to 2, you can catch us on Sunday mornings at 9 a.m. and also at 4 p.m. And we have an outstanding show for you today. So this is really a very special edition of Sportsman of Colorado. In studio, the man. Mr. Wayne Carlton. Mr. Carlton, how are you, sir? It is my pleasure. It is great to see you. I’ll shake your hand, all right? Because, man, what a legend. And also, our friends, which kind of gave me the introduction last year at the International Sportsman’s Expo, Donnell Johnson and Lisa Thompson. And Donnell’s running our Facebook Live here. Mr. Carlton, I hear the words whenever we post that we’re going to have you on or just watching on social media. Idol. Mentor. I can have a mentor. Famer. Famer, he’s famous. Hall of Fame. If there was, you know, the NFL just had their Hall of Fame. If there was a Hall of Fame. He is in the Archery Hall of Fame. I mean, of just people that have contributed to the outdoor industry and elk hunting and really all kinds of hunting, it would be you. So we appreciate you, and thank you for what you’ve done for us.
SPEAKER 15 :
I probably had more fun than the rest, but it’s been – I think I came to a conclusion because I was asking myself – Where does this legend stuff come from and icon and that sort of thing? I think you’re that if you outlive your competition. Well, you’re on your way. They’re all dead and gone, and we’re still sitting here. I just have to live longer than Lisa.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, if you ask me, I don’t think you have that much competition out there, Wayne. When you have the best, I don’t think there’s that much.
SPEAKER 15 :
Well, I was fortunate. I grew up in Florida down in the swamps, and we learned how to call alligators and crows and turkeys and whatever. So I had an uncle that was… Just fortunate that he would take me under his wing, so to speak. And we’d go swamp wading every weekend. That’s what we did. Wow. And so you learn how to communicate with wildlife. You learn how to walk without scaring things. You learn how to fit into the environment. And that all started with me at a very early age. And I’ll kind of compare that to a young person that can play a guitar like nuts. And I asked the kid, I said, so when did you feel it? that you could talk through your guitar in the fourth grade. And so here I am, 75, wishing I could play a guitar. You just got to put it in perspective in the fourth grade. Yes, sir, absolutely.
SPEAKER 06 :
So what was the first animal sound? that made you want to get into this, that you felt like, hey, this was my first animal sound that came out of my mouth?
SPEAKER 15 :
I think it was a coon fight. Okay. And we’re out in the woods in the middle of the night at Uncle John’s cornfield, and the dogs are treeing. You know, first of all, they chase the coons. The coon goes up in the tree. And the object is when you get there, you shine their lights with a headlamp. And when they look at you, you shoot them. Yep, sir. I’ve done that. Well, sometimes they don’t want to look at you. So Uncle Harvey, he says, I’ll make them look. You get ready to shoot. So he goes. And everybody in that tree wanted to see what was going on on the ground. And every time they took a peek, I’d shoot. We killed 12 coons that night from one tree, which is like crazy good. Wow. And we used to get a 25-cent apiece for them coons that the dogs had chewed up and I had shot with the 22. Wow, that’s awesome. But what impressed me so much is as time went on, my Uncle Harvey, drinking moonshine to keep the mosquito bites down to a minimum, knew what to say at the right time to make wildlife do something they did not plan on doing that night. So I have that same outlook when I hunt turkeys or elk. And they probably, unless they’re coming to a water tank or something like that, they probably maybe just didn’t plan on going to your spot. So if you can, through calling, create enough excitement and havoc, and when I say havoc, it’s like calling a bear or whatever. When you can create enough excitement to make that animal come to your position, you just won. So that was the first one.
SPEAKER 06 :
Wow. Now, you really didn’t start out with the whole elk calling thing. So let’s go back to the beginning just a minute about calling.
SPEAKER 15 :
When I first started hunting wild turkeys, there were no mouth calls whatsoever. We had a wing bone that you could suck back in on to get that turkey sound. But… You had to use your hands using a box call or a slate. And sometimes that slate would be mounted in a turtle that had died. So it had the frame. So that was our turkey call. So I was fortunate that I got to see diaphragm calls grow from nothing to what it is today. And I learned how to call turkeys with it. It took me three months to utter the first sound, period. Could not do it. Nobody knew how to teach you. And the frames were made out of lead. So here we are chewing on lead for months at a time. I feel a lot better now that it’s gone. So at any rate, I got to witness and feel all from Zippo, no diaphragms at all, to where we are today. I learned a lot from the wild turkey, learning how to call them. They see 10 times better than we do. They can fly faster than we can run. They hear exceptionally well. And so I think if anybody’s listening out there, if you can become a good turkey hunter and be successful hunting turkeys on a time and again basis, you can hunt whatever else you want to hunt and be successful. Right. Especially elk. Elk’s got one more thing. They can smell you. Supposedly a turkey can, but I kind of wonder about that.
SPEAKER 06 :
So Donnell and Lisa, and again, Donnell’s kind of running our camera here, but boy, the last few years have been very special for y’all.
SPEAKER 10 :
Very.
SPEAKER 06 :
We’ve had the pleasure to… Getting to hunt with him and be with him and learn from him.
SPEAKER 12 :
We feel like we’re cheating when we have Wayne in the forest.
SPEAKER 06 :
I feel like you’re cheating.
SPEAKER 12 :
I’m glad I’m having fun.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, it definitely feels like you’re cheating when you have him turkey calling or elk calling. I think Donnell and I are pretty decent callers, but when you have Wayne in the house, it’s kind of not a fair fight.
SPEAKER 15 :
He definitely has upped our game. I consider it a card game. when you’re trying to call something in, always let the elk make the mistake first. And here’s a great example. We’re hunting at 12,000 feet up in West Elk Wilderness. And I knew the elk was there because I scouted. But we got six inches of snow that night. I hadn’t planned on that. So we went out. Things finally started melting. And I had three guys with me. And I just knew the elk was there. There was no reason for him to leave. song calling calling up and have some fun and i said okay one more time and i guess you’re not put more emphasis more edge on the call real high-pitched hurts you hear just rings and just get ready to put my hand on the ground is push myself up and it’s what i hear and it just rattled through a canyon i mean it was amazing so just that poppin and uh… long story short I caught him in 17 yards. The guy shot him, made a great shot. He scored .328, and he had half a spruce tree in his rack.
SPEAKER 10 :
He disturbed him that morning when he was raking the tree, and he decided to quit raking and come over to you.
SPEAKER 15 :
17 yards away. Patience is what kills things. I killed a big right at 400-point bull in New Mexico on the last day of the hunt 10 years ago. And the only reason we did that and were successful is because I had a knee that I had to have replaced. And so I couldn’t walk. I said, let’s just get up in that tree stand and stay there. And sure enough, here comes Godzilla Gonzo. I said, I just want to see that guy. I mean, he sounds so bad, he’s got to be a big whoop butt.
SPEAKER 10 :
Wayne has that bowl hanging in his house. Oh, it’s beautiful.
SPEAKER 1 :
$3.98.
SPEAKER 12 :
You can actually go on YouTube and the whole thing’s out there, John. I videoed that for you.
SPEAKER 06 :
Wow, that’s awesome. I tell you what, we’re going to take a break here a couple minutes or when we come back, we’re going to talk about stress. OK, strategies and calling, whether it be morning or evening or that midday time when a lot of people go in. And I want to talk about that, too, because I think a lot of hunters make mistakes going in at 10 o’clock and coming back.
SPEAKER 12 :
Or when it snows six inches. I mean, we see people that release a little bit of change of weather and they give up. And that’s that’s when I feel like we have an advantage with our scent and all of that.
SPEAKER 15 :
Well, when people are going in, they’re going to bed up, so there’s less pressure in the woods. And you get a lot more done. And the animals usually that you’re calling to have settled down from early in the morning until late afternoon. They just want to kick back. Right.
SPEAKER 06 :
You’re listening to Sportsman of Colorado Special Edition. Mr. Wayne Carlton is in the studio along with Donnell Johnson and Lisa Thompson from Hunt Data. We’ve got to take a short break, and we’ll be back with more right after this.
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SPEAKER 14 :
This is KLZ 560 AM, your home station.
SPEAKER 06 :
Welcome back to Sportsman Colorado. Again, if you’re just joining us and missed the opening of the show, Wayne Carlton passed away this last week. And we had this interview back with him in 2018. He was with us a couple of times, but I wanted to revisit this interview. As I listened back to it, it was just a really fun time with Wayne. And if you never got to see him or hear him speak, it tells you a little bit about him. And so we’re going to hit the second part of this interview now here with Wayne Carlton. Welcome back to Sportsman of Colorado, a special edition. If you’re just joining us, my name is Scott Watley. We are very privileged to have in studio Mr. Wayne Carlton is with us, Lisa Thompson, Donnell Johnson from Hunt Data. So let’s talk about strategies and calling. And I want you guys to chime in on this and ask Wayne the questions you feel are pertinent as well. But let’s just talk about the whole concept of calling, Wayne, and, you know, strategies that you’ve learned over the years. And I guess we’ll start out when we first get out there in the mornings. Thanks.
SPEAKER 15 :
If you want to be successful calling elk or anything, be where they want to be first. Or is there already maybe the bedding area that we’re talking about and maybe a wallow? And each one has its own story to tell, so we can go back and touch on that. But I just learned really young that if you want to call a lot of critters, be where they want to be anyway. And it takes very little to make. In other words, you’re not having to do a 90-degree turn. Right. They just kind of generally going that way. And people, humans are things that have it. Of course, the wildlife does too. But everybody’s on a schedule. Everybody’s got a clock. Everybody’s got something else to do. And when you go elk hunting, you just got to pull the plug. And realize, an old man told me, he said, if you want to stalk turkeys, you have to move slower than the turkey. So if your gate is going, I mean, it’s just simple stuff that you hit every day, but you never think of it. So you got the gate of a man, you’re just walking. Well, the turkeys are feeding, they’re scratching, they’re pecking, they’re doing their little deal, and they’re not going anywhere. They’re just kind of standing right there because they found something to feed on. Well, if you’re an intruder or a predator coming, well, then if you’re coming too fast, that’s where all the vibe starts. So you just, you have to realize… take it back a little bit and let things happen in a normal fashion. Have you ever been someplace that is so quiet it’s deafening? Yes, sir. Same thing with eyesight. We don’t think about that. You think about eyesight just glancing around. When you’re looking at the back of that computer thing, And what can I see? I can see dust on that little ridge. I see the yellow light. I see some sort of a name on the bottom. You can barely make it out. So that’s what I’m talking about, making your eyes adjust to the light, making them adjust to the speed of the movement. And it is amazing what unfolds in front of you. So it’s those little tips that I think a lot of the hunters, especially younger folks that… Maybe they’re wanting everything for a trophy. God, just think of the passion that you could build within somebody or something when you put all those aspects. I step slower than the turkey. That kind of a deal. Right.
SPEAKER 10 :
I think one of the strategies I’ve used in the past is, of course, I get up early in the morning and what’s the old saying? Early bird gets the worm. But Donnell and I were on a hunt a few years ago. I had a buzzer loading tag. And those early mornings catch up to me because just going hard all day and stuff. And I have personally shot probably more animals during the middle of the day than any time, even at first light. And that sort of thing. So it was my third day in my hunt. I was wore out. And I just said, tomorrow we’re going to sleep in. Sleeping in is 7. But we didn’t get up on the mountain until about 1 o’clock, Donnell and I. And we decided to throw out a call. One of Wayne’s calls. And I threw out a hyper hot… uh… cow call and on top of that donnell bugled and we were just checking it out and instantaneous one clock in the afternoon we got three bugles back like that now everybody else’s went in and uh… we’re not we’re like game on now we had a good night’s rest we’ve had a good breakfast and we’re ready to go so if that we stay we uh… thought that moles would come to us they did not so we went watch slower than them but we crap and we got We were coming down, and before we knew it, we looked around in the forest, and we came in the herd.
SPEAKER 12 :
We called in four satellite bulls.
SPEAKER 10 :
We had elk all around us, and we had them on left, right, and front, and we had just crept in nice and slow because we were going to go after the bugle. And we called in all of the satellite bulls that we assumed were his satellite, and we never did see that big bull that was bugling. Now, we’re talking it’s 1, 1.30 in the afternoon now. For two hours, we played cat and mouse with this bull. I had a muzzleloader. And Donnell finally held back about 80 yards.
SPEAKER 12 :
Because I was doing more of the calling because she was trying to focus on shooting. So I decided to hold back because it seemed like no matter how far we went, he went further. Like I said, we called in all of his satellites. Then we’d have to sit there and wait for them to not be scared and decide to leave us. And so I just started holding back and letting her get closer and closer to that herd bull. And pretty soon I hear the boom and she shot him.
SPEAKER 10 :
And those two hours, we never saw that bull. And I knew the area. We were coming open. And I’m like, please do what your elk are supposed to do. And the cows were out in the middle of this small park. And all four satellite bulls were around it. And the big bull comes screaming out to get his cows to retrieve them. And I had a split second to decide what, you know, could I get a shot or whatever. and i took the shot it was about a hundred and thirty two yeah 32 yard shot it was a 320 bull 3 30 in the afternoon and and all four of those bulls all the satellites were bugling and everything and all of everyone else in our hunting camp was already back at camp when we left they had already done their morning camp a hunt and they were done hunting
SPEAKER 12 :
So I actually got in a fight with another cow, which I didn’t I didn’t know a lot about your fighting cow calls and all that back then. But I was just doing it. And she’s like, oh, pretty soon she looks at me like, knock it off. I’m like, well, you are screwing around with the cow. Yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
So let’s talk about that in a minute. First of all, when you go out in the mornings, a lot of different thought process there, you know, leave at 430, you know, be sitting where you’re going to sit an hour and a half before the sun comes up, whatever. So before legal shooting light, let’s say. Right. Are you usually in place where you’re going to sit?
SPEAKER 12 :
I try to be. Yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 12 :
We try to be. I mean, yeah. Things happen, but ideally, in an ideal situation, we would like to be set up so that we’re quiet enough, like he said. One of the cool things that happened with Wayne with me this year was we’re out there, and he’d been calling, and nothing’s really happening. But about that time, we hear a hoot owl. Go ahead and do it. Hoot, hoot, hoot, hoot, hoot, hoot, hoot, hoot, hoot. I was like, really? And he’d already thrown out some cow calls and some bugles, but nothing was happening. But we were losing light. So, you know, I was moving towards where I knew they liked to bed down on the side, the timber and the cool. And so he starts doing this hoot out. But the part about that was so amazing to me was he was keeping the forest alive.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right.
SPEAKER 12 :
Because when the forest is quiet, they notice that because the normal sounds aren’t happening. And so like Wayne is part forest and he was keeping the forest alive, which I thought was just a whole nother concept because people are always so focused on. Did you do a cow call? Did you do a bugle? But part of it is even just being aware of have you been so loud and you’re walking so fast that everything’s gotten quiet, you know?
SPEAKER 06 :
So if you’re if you’re not. You get out there in place, and you don’t hear anything. Do you wait to hear that first sound, or do you do a cow? Do you do a bugle, Wayne?
SPEAKER 15 :
I do cow calls and bugles both. I’ll tell you another quick story. I went to Montana. I was hosting an Elk Country Journal at the time, and we were up outside of Gardner, Montana. And the guy said, you might as well leave your bugle tube at home because they don’t answer it. I said, well, we’ll try. So I called. He told me afterwards, it was 11 o’clock. We were going down the mountain, and the drafts was now coming up, so we’re going up to get away from it. And I’m using a small tube like that. And I think it was around 11 o’clock. I finally called one time, and it was like 15 minutes he was there. Big 6’6″, scored 300-plus. And the kid told me, he says, you called more today than I called my entire hunting season. I said, I can’t say no more. If you’re walking through the woods for a field trip and you’re not calling, that’s what you’re going to see. You probably won’t see a lot. But if you’re trying to attract, just think of this, you’re trying to attract an elk to your position. Well, think of everything that may eat an elk. Now you hear this high-pitched what you’re doing, high-pitched what you’re doing, the excitement they create. It’s more fuel to the fire. Now the predator says, I think I need to get on up there. So I call in quite a few mountain lions, quite a few bears. I have two. Tons of coyotes. Wow. And not trying to. Sure. But they’re all coming to the party for different reasons. Right. And that’s what you guys have said over these last few years.
SPEAKER 06 :
I mean— You guys are noisy out there.
SPEAKER 12 :
I’ve said a billion times that I’m sure I’ve messed up some hunts, but I’ve also created some hunts, and I’m not the patient kind.
SPEAKER 10 :
One thing that Donnell and I do, and again, she would probably tell you some people say we might over-call, but I would say our success rate’s pretty good. But one thing that we do is we, I’ve seen it. I’ve watched her. I go to Estes Park just to watch him. You know, I watch what elk do all the time. I watch videos. But there’s nothing that ticks a bull off more than when you cut him off. And you can get him so fired up. And even when I’m cow calling or vice versa, she’s bugling, I’ll cow call before she finishes. We’ve gotten the forest pretty riled up doing that. So it’s been pretty helpful.
SPEAKER 15 :
What’s your thoughts on that, Wayne? Well, I was just sitting here while she was talking about that. You were going to cut her off? About decoying. Yeah. You can take a decoy and cut them off with your voice, you know, doing the cow calls. But we’re learning something on decoys is a head shake means one heck of a lot. And the cow will turn and look over at you, you being the bull, and she’ll start to do then just flip her ears back and forth. I swear, whatever you want to bet, we’ll bet it. They’re coming.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, that’s what’s changed our hunting, and I can thank Wayne for that tremendously. He has a decoy called Butthead, and we’ve used it the last couple years. And I’ll tell you, there’s a reason when you’re turkey hunting, you use decoys. And I tell people all the time, when your grandma rings the bell and says dinner is ready, you go in the kitchen and expect grandma to be there. Well, it’s no different than with turkeys and elk. If you’re calling, they come in looking for who was calling them. So if you have nothing, they might not close that gap for that bow shot or whatever that shotgun shot or whatever you’re doing. But Wayne’s butthead has changed it. Those bulls that were holding up at 100 yards or 150 yards or whatever, they’re seeing a decoy now, and they’re seeing a cow. And Wayne made this. I’ll let him explain how he made it. But it looks just like a cow elk. And I think you even have a story you want to share with everyone.
SPEAKER 06 :
I do, I do. But go ahead and tell us a little bit about it.
SPEAKER 15 :
how you came up with this, because it is so realistic. Well, my son Mark helped with that. He’s a real good photographer, so we’re trying to get the most realistic look we can get. And so we went out and took pictures of cow and elk in different expressions, trying to see which one it was. And for an animal that’s supposed to be colored blind and dull grays in their sight, for them to pick up the three dimension of the ears and the nose and the eyes of that animal, Sure. What do you call her?
SPEAKER 12 :
Ella. Her name is Ella. Ella. I don’t like to call her Butthead. It hurts her feelings.
SPEAKER 06 :
And then we think you’re talking to us.
SPEAKER 12 :
Scott’s like, yeah, what?
SPEAKER 15 :
Get your head out of the bucket, Butthead.
SPEAKER 12 :
Hey, Butthead.
SPEAKER 15 :
But it takes very little movement. And for them to pick that up as far away as they can, I mean, just imagine you’re 200 or 300 yards up above where we’re at. The elk’s coming over the top. We take that decoy and just shake it around just like one foot to the left, one foot to the right. They catch it. Sure. And once they key in on it, you better get ready to shoot because here they come.
SPEAKER 06 :
I’ll tell you, last year I got one of your decoys and a couple of your calls, the green weenie and a couple of the other calls that they had given me. And we had a cow tag, but we saw a bull and ranged it at 629 yards. And so I stuck Ella up on a horizon where you could just see it real good, and we had one little bitty bush for us to get behind. And we did the green weenie call, did a couple of your other calls here. And I’m telling you, that bull came in a hurry. Went down to draw. We lost him for a few minutes. And all of a sudden, here he came, 45 yards. Amazing. From 629. And he jumped fences and everything, right? Yeah, jumped two fences. And like I say, we had a cow tag. We just wanted to see what the experience would be like. And it was unbelievable. And Red was laying my buddy. He was like, he’s coming. He’s coming. Of course he is. Of course he’s coming. Yeah. And then at the show, the International Sportsman’s Expo was just shortly a couple weeks after that, and he ran to their booth. I need that call. I need that decoy. I mean, it was unreal.
SPEAKER 12 :
We helped Angela in January, and I put Ella just up on the crest, pulled the whole herd off another landowner. And Lisa and I had gone there the weekend before. Same calling. They wouldn’t jump that fence. And the only difference was I put Ella up there at the skyline and pretty soon it got really quiet because I was cow calling and I had another calf or cow going with me. I would cow call. She would call back. And pretty soon it got quiet and I had Angela with me and she’s like, what’s going on? And I peek up and there was this perfect triangle of elk and the lead cow was looking straight at Ella like, what? is that but what was cool is she shot her cow and that herd never left and in zach’s hunt if you go to huntingdivas.com we have all these videos out there um on zach’s hunt when lisa was calling for him we’re holding ella same thing that bull came all the way he did a pass through with the arrow and that he came all the way back to ella and the cow that was with him never left us in the solid three or four minutes on that video you’ll see her and i think it’s just because she’s looking at that decoy going well she’s not running so i guess everything’s okay you know I don’t know. It’s amazing. She’s amazing.
SPEAKER 06 :
You’re listening to Sports from Colorado. We’ve got to take a short break. If you’re just joining us, Mr. Wayne Carlton is in studio, and we’re thrilled to have him here. Danelle Johnson, Lisa Thompson from Hunt Data. We’ll be right back. All right, once again, that was a past interview in 2018 with Wayne Carlton. And as I mentioned, man, he will be missed. And I love the calls. Native by Carlton, you’ve heard of the company. And I’ve used his calls, his decoy, and has really helped me. And it was a true privilege to be able to meet him and to have him in the studio just a few times. So we’re going to go to a break. Don’t go anywhere. Sportsman of Colorado, more coming up next.
SPEAKER 02 :
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SPEAKER 04 :
Hey, Dan, you know, our jobs are pretty different. I’m a baseball announcer. You’re an attorney and a talk show host. Yeah, but we do have something in common. Really? What’s that?
SPEAKER 05 :
Our favorite car dealer, Len Lyle Chevrolet.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, definitely not your typical dealership. That’s so true, Jack. No high pressure sales tactics. They respect your time. And when you have two jobs, that’s important. You know, I’d recommend Len Lyle Chevrolet to anyone. And with their low overhead, that means lower prices.
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Yeah, we really do have something in common.
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Len Lyle Chevrolet. Go east and pay the least. Chevy. Find new roads.
SPEAKER 08 :
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SPEAKER 06 :
If you’re looking for great quality eye care, look no further than Stack Optical. Hey, this is Scott Whatley, and for over 20 years, Allen Stack has been taking care of our optical needs. At Stack Optical, they handle all of your eyewear needs with glasses, prescription glasses, shooting glasses, sunglasses, contacts. eyeglass repairs, and yes, even eye exams. And those eye exams are only $69. And if you’ve been told you’ve got a complicated prescription, that’s just one of the specialties at Stack Optical. At Stack Optical, they have their own on-site lab, and in most cases, you can have your new glasses in just two to three days. stack optical 2233 south monaco parkway free and up-close parking call them today 303-321-1578 that’s 303-321-1578 or visit stackoptical.com and remember at stack optical you’ll see the difference klz 560 am your home station Welcome back to the show. Hey, always good to have our good friend Billy Paddock with us. It is the Outdoorsman’s Attic 2650 West Hamden. Now, Billy’s been with us for years since we started, really, our shows. But if you haven’t heard him, this… is a great concept he came up with it is a consignment store for the outdoors now let me define outdoors that’s hunting fishing camping all right none of the the golf or anything like that it is strictly hunting fishing and camping gear billy always good to have you on how are you sir
SPEAKER 03 :
Good. I appreciate that disclaimer. It’s not like I don’t like golf and all that kind of stuff. But if I don’t do it, I can’t sell it because I don’t feel comfortable telling people about it.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, no, no.
SPEAKER 03 :
No golf. There’s plenty of shops out there. But yeah, I think fishing, that kind of thing. We’re all about that.
SPEAKER 06 :
Man, no doubt. You know, it is something. Buddy and I, we were talking that day, just all the gear that you accumulate as a sportsman. And you kind of look back at things and you’re like, why did I buy this? And then the big thing I run into a lot of times, I can’t find something. So then I go buy it knowing I had one. And then I find myself with two. So a lot of things can go on there. But let’s approach the consignment side first of things in just gear and whether that’s hunting, camping, fishing, and just kind of tell people how all that works.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, so, I mean, we’re not high pressure here. You know, we’re a family business. Most of your listeners probably know that by now. But I don’t try to make things harder than they really are. So you bring your stuff in. We set you up with a consignment account. um, you know, to kind of go through your stuff. We want stuff that’s usable guys. If it, if you’re not going to use it out there, chances are somebody else isn’t either. So no funky smelling, you know, tents and no, no ripped pair of pants. Um, you know, we want usable stuff. That being said, everybody’s got that kind of stuff, you know, like to what you mentioned earlier, guys go in and out of stuff all the time. You know, I, I thought that I was going to be a fly fisherman. I found out it wasn’t for me. I get frustrated. So I had all that junk and everything, and so you bring it into a shop like mine, we sell it for you, we get some money back. More importantly, you get to go and use that money or find something else that you really like to do. It’s a good outlet for that kind of thing, because every year everybody looks through the magazines and goes, ah, I’ve got to have that part. A lot of times that stuff doesn’t work out for people. Our shop’s a great way to get introduced into those kind of sports, too. A typical guy, I just talked to a guy earlier this week. He just dropped $1,000 on a bunch of fly fishing stuff. And he’s like, oh, man, I wish I would have known. I just picked this up. He walks into my shop. I probably could have outfitted four guys.
SPEAKER 06 :
No, I started to say, yeah, $1,000 goes a long way at your store.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, it does. It does. And so, you know, even on the fence, guys, you know, if you’re just thinking about getting into elk hunting, you know, come into my shop. You know, the clothing gets expensive so quickly. You know, another great outlet is kid stuff. You know, kids’ camo, you know, kids’ fishing stuff, kids’ waders, you know. Those kids aren’t going to stay that size. There’s no sense in spending $200 on a set of waders for a kid that’s going to wear them for maybe three trips. That being said, if you’ve got kid gear, bring it in because we’re always starving for that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER 06 :
That’d be a huge sector, man, that really needs help.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. Yeah, you know, and I mean, you know, going forward, I mean, even like muzzleloading, that’s getting hot again because you guys are getting kind of frustrated with some of the draws. And if you got muzzleloading stuff and you tried it, you decided it’s not for you, bring it in. We can turn it into cash for you. and get it in front of somebody else that’s going to use it.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right. And, you know, a lot of times, too, man, fabric shrinks. In other words, our sizes change. And I’ve got some things that, you know, used to fit different. I’ll just put it that way. And a lot of times this stuff, you know, is gently used, you can say.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
You know?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. You know, I’m guilty of it. I always say that my arms get longer. And so… long sleeve shirts and me never work out. And so my wife’s like, gosh, what are you going to do with all this stuff? So I just bring it over to the shop and resell it. But I mean, that’s true. You know, this clothing stuff, a lot of the stuff that I get in is real lightly used. Guys, we’re all gear junkies. We all like the greatest, best thing that, you know, blah, blah, blah, that the neighbor has. But at the same time, the fish, the birds, the You know, the elk, nobody’s looking at the labels, guys. They’re not trying to see if you got the 2025 camo pattern. Yeah. You know, don’t let that fool you. And so you come into a shop like mine, you save a buck, and you still get, you know, you still get good results.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, absolutely. And once again, it’s located at 2650 West Hamden. And what are your hours, Billy?
SPEAKER 03 :
And so Tuesday through Friday, we’re here from I’m usually here by eight. We’re here until a little after five, depending on if it’s a little slow out there. We might we might go and play hooky and I might drop a line somewhere. And then on Saturdays, we’re from nine to four. We’re closed on Sundays and Mondays. Yes, I got it. I’ve got to get out and play, too. I’m sick of hearing all the stories about everybody else going out.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, no doubt, no doubt.
SPEAKER 03 :
Fishing and hunting. Yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
And, you know, just kind of thinking the last time I was in, I mean, man, if people are in the market for packs, man, you’ve got a big selection. You’ve got sleeping bags down. I mean, folks, this is something. There’s an upstairs and a downstairs now when you go. So how do you describe the best way for people to get to you there off that service road?
SPEAKER 03 :
So we’re just, you know, a lot of old-timers know the building as the old camera trader building. That was around since dirt was invented. We’re in that building. We’re basically between Santa Fe and Federal on 285. Everybody thinks it’s a frontage road that’s just north of Hampton there. It’s actually Hampton Avenue. You’ll see the back of the building up against 285. It’s got a giant purple mountain on it. You know, that’s us there. Right.
SPEAKER 06 :
And once again, folks, fishing, hunting, camping gear, and if you’ve got some things that, you know, hey, you’re just not using anymore, I’m telling you, it’s a lot better than trying to do Facebook Marketplace and some of these other things. um apps that may be out there you can take it into billy hey he’ll help you price it reasonably where it’ll sell and um like i say it’s a great way to uh make some extra bucks or hey what i do is just end up buying something else there that ends up being a really really good deal because bill i mean i’ve seen things through the years i mean and quite often that’s brand new in a package dude oh yeah i mean i mean we we’ve got a ton of ammo the reloading stuff is always hot if you
SPEAKER 03 :
If you’ve decided to back off of reloading, bring it in because I’ve got guys daily coming in and just buying everything that I have for reloading. So I’m starving for reloading supplies. And so you’re going to get a premium for that. You know, the ammo, you know, it’s all new stuff. You know, the fishing stuff, guys go in and out of fishing all the time. Right. Tents, wall tents. You know, the draw is going to be coming up here pretty quick. Yeah. Hey, man. Going through your stuff and thinking, okay, do I want to? still be in this tent or do I want another one? Bring it into the shop guys. Um, you know, this is a good time of year for me to, I said that the store always kind of swells up after the, the wives start going through our closets and going, you know what, you’re not going to fit that. Or, you know, I want to park my car in the garage kind of thing. So, um, Now’s the time to do it, guys.
SPEAKER 06 :
And like you said, man, for families to come in, you know, and you got kids and you need to buy them some fishing gear. You need to get them some things. As Billy said, hey, their sizes, their sizes are definitely not going to stay long. And hey, there’s a great selection in there. of different things and it can change uh day to day i mean this is actually a store honestly uh you can go in two three times a week and you will see different things every time you come in and billy it’s got to be a fun deal you know i used to watch some of those pawn shop deals on tv when people bring stuff in i mean every time that the the bell goes off and the front door opens you never know what’s going to walk in there that somebody wants to sell right
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, yeah. It’s crazy, the stuff. And, you know, I’ve learned a lot over the years, too. I thought that I knew everything. And I mean, some of the best knowledge that I get are from my customers. You know, they bring in something that I’ve never seen before and they have to explain it to me. And then not five minutes later, one guy comes in and says, I’ve been looking for that for years and buys it and out the door happier than anything, you know. Yeah. same thing with scotty our gunsmith downstairs you know he’s a wealth of knowledge for me sure um and i mean he’s just turning and burning right now um guys are bringing in a ton of stuff so right right and you got live bait too right we do yep yep uh ice fishing guys i i don’t know what happened but we had good ice and then it quickly disappeared here in town but um the yep the mount lakes are still looking good so we still got plenty ice up there but Yeah, we go through a ton of bait and a ton of fishing stuff here.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right. Once again, Billy Paddock is our guest. It’s the Outdoorsman’s Attic, 2650 West Hamden. Hey, when you go in, let them know you heard them here on the show. And you’ll hear them on our Haystack show. You’ll hear them on Sportsman of Colorado. But Billy has been one of our great supporters since we first started. And I just walked in one day and said, hey, I’m going to start a radio show. And they were kind enough to help me and say, um have been just just terrific um personal friends great partners for us here on the show helped a lot of our listeners and um i love the stories billy i think last year a couple times you had people listen and they were passing through town going to hunt and and swung in and bought something so that’s good yeah you know and it works both ways scott it really does i mean you’ve truly been a help to the shop you know i love you guys you’ve
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, all your listeners have been great. And make sure you drop his name because you never know. I might be in a good mood.
SPEAKER 06 :
You won’t charge him more, right, if they say Scott sent me?
SPEAKER 03 :
No, you’re one of the few that if you drop Scott’s name or the show and everything, you’re going to get a discount. I promise I won’t upcharge you.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, man, we appreciate it. And, again, it’s the Outdoorsman’s Attic, 2650 West Hampton. So get by and see Billy again. Tell him I sent you, and they’ll take great care of you. And if you’ve got some things, hey, taking up your garage space, closet space, go through it, get it over to Billy, and turn it into cash. So, Billy, I know you’re busy, man. We appreciate it, and I’ll get over and see you soon.
SPEAKER 03 :
Guys, thank you very much.
SPEAKER 06 :
All right. Thank you. Today’s show is brought to you by the Mile High Hunt and Fish Expo. That’s April 11th through the 13th at the Gaylord Rockies Resort. Go to milehighhuntexpo.com for your tickets and information. More coming up on that. Stay tuned to Sportsman of Colorado for that. Thanks for being with us today. Hope you have a great rest of your day. Leave it right here on KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 11 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
