Join us for a detailed discussion on the implications of wildfires in northern hunt territories, as shared by guest Quentin Smith. Learn how mother nature is shaping the hunting landscape in Saskatchewan and how Dos Plumas Ranch adapts to provide thrilling hunts even in challenging conditions. Episodes like this remind us of the unpredictable nature of outdoor adventures and the thrilling stories that emerge.
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 03 :
Welcome to Sportsman Colorado. Thank you so much for joining us today. Hey, we’ve got a great show in store for you. But before we get to that, hey, congrats to all those that were successful in the 2025 big game draw. Our first initial draw anyway. And hey, a couple of dates I wanted to mention real quick. June 2nd is the deadline to surrender period deadline by 1159 p.m. Mountain Time. So if you’ve got a tag, you know you’re not going to be able to use it now. You have until June 2nd to surrender that tag. And then June 13th. is your license payment deadline. I’ve already got some calls from some folks that, oh man, I got contacted by CPW, got an email back, said my credit card was wrong, it had expired, or the payment didn’t go through for whatever reason, so make sure of that, June 13th. That’s when the license has to be paid for. And then supposedly June 27th, they will be in the mail. And then the secondary draw application, that starts June the 19th. And then the secondary draw application and correction deadline is June 30th. So some important dates there concerning our big game draw, and we’ll follow up those here in the coming weeks. Hey, if you ever have – I don’t mention this enough. We’ve got our text line, our Flesch Law text line, our attorney Kevin Flesch, which is our co-host when his time allows and does a legal talk show with us on our Haystack show. He has sponsored our text line. If you ever have a question for us or maybe you’re listening, you can’t call in, you’d like to see us cover a topic, you’ve got a question, use our text line, 720-201-8585, and we will get back to you on that as well. Always good to have our good buddy Quentin Smith with us formally, and I guess still in some ways, QRS Outdoors. You’ve heard Quentin on the show for many, many years, but his operation has grown and blossomed into a couple of other great, great outings and hunts and fishing trips, and we’re going to talk a little bit about them today. So, Quentin, first of all, welcome to the show. How are you?
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey, great to always be back with you, Scott, and great to… Great fall coming up in front of us. We just see Colorado posted the draw results. Everyone’s excited to see what’s coming out there, and time to start planning even more.
SPEAKER 03 :
I know, man, I know. Well, hey, as we speak, just to give people a little picture of what you’re going through right now, you’re in Saskatchewan, Nordic Lodge, your operation there, and a lot going on, a lot of fires. Fill us in what’s happening. Oh, yes.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, so up in Reindeer Lake in northern Saskatchewan, south end, very high in the Providence right against the Manitoba border. We’re in bear season. Bear season started here a couple of weeks ago, but our first set of hunters will come in actually this Sunday. So we’re checking baits right now, getting everything baited up. Everything’s in really good shape. We’ve got bears hitting everything. We’re looking… Very promising, but yes, Saskatchewan, Manitoba specifically, are under major fire. Very hot, very dry up here. The boreal forest is on fire, and they are lighting trees up as fast as it can happen. So it’s about 45 miles or so from us at this point in time. We’re safe. Everything’s going great here at the lodge. But always just another challenge you’ve got to figure out how to deal with.
SPEAKER 03 :
Wow, no doubt. And I’ll tell you, boy, you want to talk about something that can change a lot from the hunting, I expect, fires, right?
SPEAKER 05 :
that’s right i mean it’s something that you don’t really even think of and you never think about canada being dry as much water and stuff and lakes and things are up here it’s you know we talked about lakes being low and different things like that and so we we definitely see lots of things that way that uh um become a reality now and and uh there’s just not a tremendous amount of resources in this country to be able to fight these fires and so um mother nature has uh taken care of its forest i guess is the best way to say it and so she’s she’s cleaning some things up and and uh it’s it’s been been a pretty rough go over here the last couple of weeks for fire already wow as i told you in the season yeah i told you yesterday we talked i wish we could send you some we’re getting a ton of rain here in colorado these
SPEAKER 03 :
last few weeks my wife in texas and then she just got pounded last night with rain down there and just unbelievable how much they got and we can’t even spark a drop around here yeah man well hey we make let’s we’ll circle back to maybe some bear uh let’s let’s tell people about the operation but um when i asked you yesterday if you had some openings uh on your hog hunts uh you said yeah so let’s start out with just kind of filling people in about dos plomas and uh tell them about your ranch there
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, the Dos Plymouth Hunting Ranch has been around for 20 years. We brought the operation in September of 22. Very well established. We can handle eight people in camp at a time. Basic packages, there’s three or four different packages we can talk about, but our basic package is a two-day, two-night, two-hog package for $600 per person. And we can handle up, like I said, eight people in camp at a time. It’s blind hunting and spot and stalk both, so you get best of both worlds in that deal. And so it works out really good. We’ve got options for thermals. We’ve got options for trophy hunting. If you want just to hunt a big hog that’s got trophy cutters and, you know, over 200 pounds, somewhere in there, we do have those options. And we’ve got a hog and ram combo option as well. It’s really popular. So no trophy fees, no hidden fees, anything like that at all. It’s all set at one price across the board. So it works out really, really well. Very high success. This is not a high-fenced operation. We just got regular ag fence on our place. But lots of pigs, all feeders and blinds, and, of course, pot and stock bullets. Yeah. Do you get some archery hunters as well? We do, we get lots of archery hunters that come down. So we’ve got tripod stands that we put, uh, archery hunters in. Uh, if we can’t get them in a tripod, I do have some ground binds specifically handmade ones that work well for the archery hunters. Uh, we’ve even had a couple of guys show up with Spears this year.
SPEAKER 03 :
Wow. That’s gotta be some fun. Now the location, uh, where are you located?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, just 30 minutes west of Abilene on I-20 in Trent, Texas is where we’re at. So from the Denver area, right at 10 hours to our doorstep.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, and I’ll tell you, that’s a cool way to do it. I mean, a lot of times. And we’re going to be coming down there in December, man. Can’t wait. Kevin, Flesh and I, we were just talking about it. And so, man, you can drive it, like I say, 10 hours. A couple guys switch off. Not a big deal. And, man, have your own car. But also if you want to fly. So where would most people fly if they did want to fly? Where would they come into?
SPEAKER 05 :
We – Yeah, absolutely. We encourage people to fly to Abilene, Texas, and then they can rent a car and come over from there, or we do have options for pickup services available. There’s some cost associated to that across the board for sure, but at the end of the day, Abilene’s the best bet. Dallas-Fort Worth is going to be three hours from us. Lubbock- is about two and a half as well, so.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right. Now, calibers, what do you like for people to shoot? Just in my personal experience, sometimes those .223s, man, .556, they’re a little light for some of these hogs, but what do you like? What do you like to tell people?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I’ll be the first one to tell you at the end of the day that shop placement is what matters the most with any caliber. But I, too, totally agree with you that we tell people 243 and greater is what we like. We try to stay away from the 300 blackouts, and we try to stay away from the 223s if possible. If people want to bring a 223, while we don’t encourage it, we do ask that they bring a hunting round and not a full metal jacket. We probably have more hogs wounded to that situation than any. And so, of course, people are coming for the meat. The meat is phenomenal to eat and very, very well taken care of. And so we got skinners and stuff here on the ranch. And so, you know, you don’t want to just shoot one to wound one. We want to shoot to kill.
SPEAKER 03 :
Sure. And then as far as the, you got a cooler there that you could store them in there for the couple of days?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, exactly. We’ve got a walk-in cooler there on the ranch. We’ve got skinners available there on the ranch that will skin and quarter your hog for $25 to $50, depending on the size of your pig. And then we’ll quarter it, put it in the cooler for you, and then that’s ready for you to take home. I do also have processors available if we know ahead of time that you’re wanting processing done. We can have that done ahead of time for you before you go home. Typically, Travis can have it all. Wrapped and ready to go. Now, that’s going to be your basic cuts with meat and sausages, not typically making into summer sausages or jerkies or any specialty items at that point. But breakfast sausage, Italian sausage, and any kind of steak stuff out of it, he can have done before you leave. Right.
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, that brings up some, because a lot of people say, oh, man, I would never eat a wild hog like that. But I’m telling you, we’ve done it, like you say, in the sausages and different things like that. So what do you recommend that people get with processing?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, so typically your very best eating hog, to answer that question first off, is that 80 to 120, 140-pound pig. That’s the best eating pig there is. When you start getting into your 200-pound boars and stuff like that, it all depends on their smell and their rutting and where they’re at there. We all know that pigs can rut. three times a year, you know, and basically we’ve got new litters on the ground three months, three weeks, and three days. So at the end of the day, what we tell people, your meats, your pork chops, your pork loins, any of that kind of stuff is extremely good with them. Your breakfast sausage, your Italian sausages are really good with them. We’ve even had lots of people taking the rams and doing the same thing with it. And we’ve had quite a few people send us some summer sausage and stuff they’ve made back home and sent to us. We joke all the time back in Wisconsin, all them hunters, they’re probably the best at making summer sausages and pepperoni sticks and things like that around. And so they’re always sending us stuff. cheese and sticks made of rams and different things, and it’s really good. They can really make something good out of it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right. Now, two hogs in your normal package, but if folks want to add some hogs, you’re set up to do that as well.
SPEAKER 05 :
Absolutely. $150 for extra hogs. You can add extra days to your trip. You can… Yeah, we can upgrade packages, you know, from a regular hog package to a trophy package or a ram package, either one. We can do any kind of combo with a total of eight people if we want to. And you don’t have to have eight people to come. If you want to come by yourself or you’ve got just a couple of you want to come, we’ve got that option available.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. Now on the rams, tell us a little bit about that. There are several species, right? or what do you have?
SPEAKER 05 :
There is. Great question. So Corsican black Hawaiian painted desert, um, uh, spotted Catalinas and, and, uh, Spanish style goats. Uh, we’ve got four horn Rams and Ramley Rams, um, a whole variety of Rams that are out there on the ranch. And, and at that point it’s whatever you want. There’s no size, uh, discretion. Everything is, you know, super nice quality Rams and, and, uh, At the end of the day, you shoot whatever animal you want, whatever kind of ram you want that’s on the ranch at the time.
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, Texas has really become the place you can hunt about any species in the world in Texas now, can’t you? I think they make up a new species every month with something crossbreeding somewhere. No doubt. I mean, I grew up in Dallas, but, man, I’ll just tell you, it just seems like these ranches, we were at a deal a few weeks ago with – and privileged to be there with Jim Shockey and met some guys from a, a ranch there in Texas and their name and all this stuff they got.
SPEAKER 15 :
And I’m like, wow, it’s crazy.
SPEAKER 03 :
But man, but I will tell you this, Hey, you can go to Saskatchewan and shoot a bear much cheaper, you know, and you can go to Africa and do some things with some, some of our friends there. So, but Hey, but it is some great deals for people that just, you know, want to come down and, and Hey, no, they’re going to get a good chance to shoot something. So it’s pretty cool.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, the cool thing about Texas is we can hunt year-round with a lot of it. Yeah. And so you get a lot of different species that are not regulated by specific licenses and draws and different things like that. So it affords more opportunity and different things to be able to go hunt and do. Kind of a neat thing to go do for sure.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right. Now, I know you’re jammed. I mean, boy, you know, of course we did the International Sportsman’s Expo. We did our Mile High Hunt Expo, and your booth was full. So I know you’re pretty jammed up. Yesterday when we spoke, you do have a few openings that you wanted to let us know about.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, so July and August definitely is a good time to give us a call for sure and look at spots there. People say, oh, I don’t want to be in Texas when it’s super hot. It’s actually some of the best hunting that can be. You know, we just change the way that we hunt. It’s all about being adaptive in the hunting world and And instead of maybe setting over a corn feeder as much, we’re setting over more of a water position because they’ve got to have water daily. They’ve got to have that. So our success stays fourfold with it. We actually kill some of our better pigs and bigger pigs, you know, going into the summer months as well. And so we do have some specials there. They can jump on the website, dosebloomishuntingranch.com. and look that up and give us a phone call, look at the calendar and see what’s available. It’ll tell you whether it’s got two spots or four spots or however many spots are available and jump on and let us know.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. Would you rather them reach you through the website or you want me to give your phone number?
SPEAKER 05 :
No, give our phone numbers for sure. The Dos Plumas number is the best one for people to get a hold of specifically because I’m off playing in Canada and won’t have much service up here anyways. The ranch number would be the best one to give.
SPEAKER 03 :
You got that on top of your head? The ranch number?
SPEAKER 05 :
I do, yep. Sorry, I just lost you there. Okay. Service is kind of… Kind of iffy around here today, but the phone number is 3, 2, 5, 5, 1, 4, 4, 7, 9, 4. You know, it’s 3, 2, 5, 5, 1, 4, 4, 7, 9, 4, 4, 7, 9, 4.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right. And Hey, I’m telling you, if you’ve done hog hunting, I don’t have to say anything. You know, it’s a blast. If you haven’t done it, this is a chance to do it. July and August great ranch there right out of Abilene, Texas. And again, Really easy drive, about 10 hours, or you can fly into Abilene, as Quentin said, and they can work out details if you need a ride, rent a car, whatever the case may be. But we’ve been hunting with Quentin for a number of years now, and I’m telling you, everything he gets into, he does it right, knows what folks are looking for. And I promise you, it will be a great time. So, once again, give them a call, 325-514-4794. Let them know you heard Quentin on Sportsman of Colorado, and they’ll get you fixed up. But I tell you what, Quentin, don’t go anywhere. If you’ve got a few more minutes, I’m going to come back and touch on your bear hunts. And I want to talk to you, too, just a few minutes on – You know, outfitters and different things. And maybe we can give some tips. Man, I tell you, I’ve just heard some stories just over these last few weeks that made me think about this to do it with you. People just, you know, they look at websites, they trust stuff, they send money, and then nobody answers the phone anymore. And that’s a bad feeling for everybody. So don’t go anywhere more. Sportsman of Colorado coming right back.
SPEAKER 04 :
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SPEAKER 12 :
You’re listening to AM560 KLZ, your home station.
SPEAKER 03 :
Welcome back to Sportsman of Colorado. If you’re just joining us, Quentin Smith is with us. We’ve been talking a little bit about some hog hunting at Dos Plumas Ranch. And that is down in Trent, Texas, just right out of Abilene. And again, if you missed it, Quentin’s got some spots open in July and August. Other than that, they are booked up solid. But if you want to… Get out when it’s a little bit slower for us here before our big game season kicks off. Great time to go down. It’s two days, two nights, two hogs. It’s a general package. Now, you can adapt those in several different ways, adding hogs, adding nights, adding days, whatever you want to do. And, Quentin, I think it’s $600?
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s right.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. All right, man. You bring your own food. Bring your own food. You got a place to sleep, but bring your own food. You got it. All right. Good deal. All right. Hey, I know, as we said, you’re in Saskatchewan right now and you’re bear hunts. And I know you’re pretty booked up on those, but let’s go ahead and touch on that and let folks know what you have to offer.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah. So Nordic Lodge is here on Reindeer Lake, 180-mile lake in northern Saskatchewan, and just an absolute amazing world-class fishery. and hunnery, for that matter, as well. This will be our fourth season that we’re entering into the bear. Here, like I said, we kick off on Monday with our first guys in camp. And so a close friend of yours that you know as well, Chad Shearer, Shoot Straight TV, will be here with us this week. So I’m getting ready for those guys to come in. I should have a great week with them. But blind hunt and combination fishing. Operation Lake Trout, Northern Pike, Walleye, Grayling, the four big species that we have here on the ranch, all guided fishing and bear hunting across the board. Semi-guided on the bear hunting as far as we’ll take you to a blind and put you in unless you want us to sit with you, and then we can do that as well. But tremendous success, great quality bears. Last year we had six that would go record book with us. um just like i said this this is really the fourth season in 124 years that bear have even been hunted in this area of the lake and so um untouched resource wow that’s cool now um you got your bear hunts you got your fishing packages to me a combo sounds really good so what would that look like Yeah, absolutely, sir. A combo barren fishing is $4,500 per person, and that’s lodging mills, five days, six nights, come in on a Saturday, or excuse me, a Sunday, and then we have Monday through Friday, and then depart out on the following Saturday. So we help take care of all of the stuff across the board. We give you all the forms for getting in and out of Canada. Super, super easy process. Bringing rifles in is super easy. We’ll line you up and make sure that you’re set up for success when you’re coming across the border and make it as easy painless for you coming and going. So going home, hey, your bear can fit in a backpack, can fit in a cooler, throw it on a plane with you, take it in a vehicle with you, your license serves as your CITES permit, take your bear back across with you.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, man, if Trump gets all this, hey, Canada may be our 51st day.
SPEAKER 05 :
It’s been quite an interesting conversation up here as to how all of that’s been going on.
SPEAKER 03 :
better leave the politics yeah yeah yeah no doubt no doubt and um now as far as as far as you know getting the animal itself back um y’all skin it out do all that and then um folks bring coolers and and then can bring their their meat back and you help them out with all that right okay
SPEAKER 05 :
We’ll do all of that for them. We’ll turnkey it across the board, have it all ready to go. We’ve got taxidermists lined up in the states if they want to have it taxidermied and done that way. We’ve got processors that we can recommend in certain areas or whatever if they need that. If they want to take their bear meat with them, we’ll quarter it out. We can bone it out if we need to. We’ll help them through that whole process across the board. Freeze the hides, freeze the heads, tag everything across and make it super easy for them.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, cool. And I tell you, boy, if you want to see some great pictures, you know, get in touch with Quentin. What’s the best number for them to reach you concerning that?
SPEAKER 05 :
yeah 970-366-0004 is my best number okay um and uh like i said we’re up here in the bush right now hunting and a lot of this area doesn’t have service so leave me a message shoot me a text message with your name and phone number on it something like that i’ll call you just as soon as i get back into service for sure but We’ll be up here through the full month of June. So at that point, our fishing operation goes all the way into the end of September. So if you want to just fish, hey, we can do that too. Right. If you want to come up and one of you wants to fish and one of you wants to bear and fish combo on the deal, sold. Easy to do.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. Wow. And, you know, this is a good place for couples, buddies, you know, a few women friends get together, whatever. I mean, it’s a great setting for all, isn’t it? You got it.
SPEAKER 05 :
It is. We’re very family-oriented here, and we’ll continue that with any business that we do. And at the end of the day, we can support husbands and wives, children, whatever. That way we’ll work with them however they want to do. We’ve got a beautiful lodge where we meet and eat our lunches and sufferers and stuff like that. We’ve got shore lunches out on the lake with the fish and things that you catch for the day. You’ve got a limited amount of fish you can bring back into the state with you, but we help freeze and label all of that for you. We’ve got nine cabins set up here that are super nice, very, very clean, very comfortable cabins to stay in while you’re here.
SPEAKER 03 :
So, yeah, we can take care of it. Wow. Quentin Smith is our guest. And once again, here we are talking about Nordic Lodge and Saskatchewan bear hunts. And, Quentin, I think a lot of people may use the term world-class fishing a little lackadaisical, but truly you guys catch a lot of fish there, don’t you?
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, it’s unbelievable. I mean, and the quality of them is just crazy. You know, you can literally catch a 40 to 50 inch pike every time you throw in the water around here. The numbers are phenomenal. The lake trout are getting bigger and bigger by the day. It really, truly is a world-class fishery.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yep. 970-366-0004. And when you call Quentin, let him know you heard him here on Sportsman Colorado. And again, if you’re just joining us, we 1,000%, a million percent vouch for Quentin. You know, endorse, recommend. Like I say, I’ve hunted with him multiple, multiple times through the years. A lot of friends have hunted with him. So if you’re looking for the real deal, a great outfitter, hey, hunting’s hunting, fishing’s fishing. But I promise you they do their best to make your trip a great success. Then all the other fun stuff that comes along with it, great food and being around great people is just an extra added value. So talking about that, Quentin, last few minutes here, but I want to talk about outfitters and, you know, people hiring outfitters and different things. And I tell you, I think here in Colorado, it’s going to become even more difficult with our customers. our draw system and just finding things. I think we’re all going to be going to other countries.
SPEAKER 05 :
Probably right.
SPEAKER 03 :
No doubt. But it does put a thing on, you know, Hey, really finding good outfitters. And how do you know? I mean, you know, it’s easy to make a nice website these days, easy to put on, you know, references and you don’t really know anybody. Let’s be honest. Anybody can rent a booth at a show. And then the people that put on the show don’t really know much about some of the people. Some of them, they’ll be maybe friends, but, What are just a few thoughts you have when you’re looking at, you know, getting into hiring an outfitter and like say whether in the States or where you’re looking something across the world?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, absolutely. So a couple of different things, you know, just specifically from a hunter standpoint and booking hunts is I continue to hunt and probably don’t do as much in the States anymore as I prefer to travel internationally and hunt there because if I hunt in the States, I’m taken away from clients that are hunting with me. But at the end of the day, I look for several things. First off, I my instant reaction to the people that I’m meeting. And can I build a rapport with them? Do I feel comfortable with what they’re telling me? Do they have a list of references that are both successful and unsuccessful with them? Because look, nobody’s going to put a reference on that’s bad, right? But look at the history of them. Look at the Google reviews. Look at the um how many years have they been in business are we looking at someone that’s been in business just a couple years are we looking at someone who’s been in business 20 25 30 years and then how you know when they tell you hey i’m booked up till 2028 well then there’s probably a reason that i’m booked up to 2028 and that’s got the quality whatever behind it and so you know there’s there’s some things that that are going to align with that process across and and not saying that that uh Everyone’s going to be in that same boat because there is a lot of people that have different openings and things. But be honest as to what you want as a hunter first and foremost. This is what I’m looking for. This is the success I’m looking for. This is the quality of animal I’m looking for. This is the experience that I want out of my hunt. and then make that match and don’t settle for less. And if you do, understand that, hey, that’s not the outfitter’s fault. That’s because you settled for something you didn’t necessarily want to begin with. And then at that point, be in conversation with those people. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. We can all get in a rut because we’ve done it for so many years. We just fall into the sink of knowing exactly what we need to do to make things happen. When it comes down to it, this is a teamwork. I’m here to work for you. This is your experience and your vacation and your trip, and I’m here to help. to provide a service and try to make it as accessible for you as it can be. And so make sure that you’re laying those details out and getting that and communicating that. And if you’ve got questions, please ask. Don’t ever be afraid to ask.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right.
SPEAKER 05 :
If someone’s not going to answer, then I’ll probably stay clear.
SPEAKER 03 :
Exactly. And, you know, too, I always tell people, hey, there’s things that we want to look out to make sure, you know, the outfitter’s all good, but then you’ve got to do your part and be a good client. And by that, I mean, like you say, communicate well. Be honest in your condition, physical condition of what you can do, what you can’t do, what you don’t want to do, and what you do want to do. I mean, different things like that. And then the big thing, and I’ve just seen this several times, is just – They hire the guide, but then they want to boss the guide, you know, and say, no, I want to go do that. Well, I mean, I have literally been on hunts before, and I mean, been super close to elk, let’s say, and this has happened where – and, you know, and they go, hey, look – We’re going to run into daylight hours here. We’re going to run out of time. We’re going to back off. We’re going to come back tomorrow. And in my head, I’m thinking, they’re 75 yards from it. You know what I mean? And the reason why I bring that up is because you guys know, hey, if we push them and they jump, they’re gone for the next week or 10 days. You know, so we’re done.
SPEAKER 05 :
There’s no better comment than that, for sure, because you get into a situation. I mean, Elker, I say Elker specifically have a Tourette syndrome about them because they can jump and – and turn their nose and run seven miles and then stop and go, what did I just do? And not even know why they just ran. But, you know, listen to your guide. They know the properties. They know their animals. They know how they react. And if they’re in a situation and they say, man, we just need to back out, there is a reason for that because at the end of the day on a five-day hunt, it’s our job to keep you in animals and make you successful. And if I can’t kill him on day one, I’ve got a higher percentage chance maybe of killing him on day two. But if I blow in on him on day one and blow him out, you may not see another elk for the rest of your hunt.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yep, for sure. Hey, last point I want to bring up, I just thought of you do some whitetailing Kansas. Any openings there this year or next year that you might want to talk about?
SPEAKER 05 :
We do have some things that we can talk about. We’ve gone to a DIY operation where we provide the lodging and you bring your own food. We provide the baits and the stands and everything across the board, some incredible properties to be able to hunt. We put the baits and everything out, run the trail cam systems on it, and be able to communicate with you. You take yourself to and from the baits and stuff. So that is an option. Going to take you one preference point for sure to get drawn in the Kansas area that we’re in there. Smith Center is where we’re at, Unit 3 and 7 are the two centers. that we typically run in pretty heavy. Okay. But, man, world-class white tail. There’s some fantastic white tail in that country. Yeah, no doubt. That doesn’t mean every deer is.
SPEAKER 03 :
Sure, sure. There is some good ones. For sure. Hey, and for that as well, more Saskatchewan, bear hunts, fishing, get a hold of Quentin, 970-366-0004. And I promise you, like I say, just trust me on this. It’ll be a great time for you. And also, hey, if you want more references, there’s plenty of guys here in Colorado we can hook you up with as well. But if you want to shoot a nice big bear, catch some fish, hey, shoot some hogs in July and August down in Texas. Quentin is your man. And, again, Quentin, we appreciate your time. And stay safe there in Saskatchewan. Hopefully they’ll get those fired. You guys will get some moisture up there.
SPEAKER 05 :
You got it. Sounds great, guys.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right, man. Thank you. That’s Quentin Smith. You’re listening to Sports Club Colorado. We’ve got to take a quick break, and we’ll be back with more right after this.
SPEAKER 09 :
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SPEAKER 03 :
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SPEAKER 15 :
Hey, Dan. You know, our jobs are pretty different. I’m a baseball announcer. You’re an attorney and a talk show host.
SPEAKER 14 :
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SPEAKER 15 :
You know, I’d recommend Len Lyle Chevrolet to anyone. And with their low overhead, that means… Lower prices.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, we really do have something in common.
SPEAKER 15 :
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SPEAKER 03 :
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SPEAKER 12 :
KLZ 560, your home station.
SPEAKER 03 :
Welcome back to Sportsman of Colorado. Well, a few weeks ago, you heard our friends from LT Arms on with us. And once again, they’re going to be with us on the first Saturday of every month. And, hey, may sprinkle in some other interviews here in the meantime. But always good to have the guys back. We’ve got Kyle Willey with us. Kyle, good to see you again. Good to see you. How are you?
SPEAKER 06 :
Good.
SPEAKER 03 :
Evan Lee. How are you? Good to see you, Scott. And Brandon Anderson. How are you, bud? Good to see you. All right. Hey, we ran out of time last time you guys were on. So I want to touch on a few things. One, it seems like, you know, as I get older, I see it now. Man, people pass away, you know, and most time it’s the husband before the wife. And maybe there’s some guns they have. Maybe it’s one or two. Maybe it’s 100. You know, they don’t know. But they don’t know what to do with them. And they don’t know what they have as far as value, different things like that. And LT Arms can help there. So Kyle, let’s take that.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, estates are hard and all that. Unless they kept good records of what they had and the values of things, it’s hard to estimate that. And so one of the things we do, and Evan’s really good at this, is he’ll go in and kind of give you an appraisal of what it’s worth and stuff like that. And we’re happy to take it on, try and sell it for you. We’ll buy it from you, depending on what things are. But, I mean, I’ll let Evan kind of talk about, you know, his expertise in everything as far as the estates from books to firearms to all that.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, you know, these women are up against it a lot of the time. They feel overwhelmed by the whole situation. They’ve just lost a life partner, and there’s this basement full or a garage or a whole shop full of things that they don’t know what they are. They don’t know what they’re worth. And it really puts their mind at ease to be able to go in there and give them a proper appraisal on the value of what’s sitting there. And a lot of the times it’s not just firearms. It can be machine tools. It can be a gunsmithing shop. It can be all the accessories that went along with that man’s hunting pursuits. His personal library of books that he’s collected for 75 years can have an immense amount of value. And to be able to go in there and provide that service and kind of help them understand get a value on it, but also help them liquidate it if they want to take it to auction, if they want to consign it to us and have us sell it for them, or if they want to just get a check and sell it to us outright. Those are all different levels, but all those options are available to them, and it’s just really nice. It gives us a great feeling ethically to be able to provide this service for them and get them the most money that they can take away from this lifetime collection that their husband provided.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, because, unfortunately, in the climate we’re in, I think what you don’t want to do is try to have people come to your house, show them guns, try to sell it. You know, they need a gun store. I mean, good night. Nobody should do that.
SPEAKER 07 :
No, no. They can come in, and we’ve got a nice area to sit down and look at this stuff in a closed environment. And we can come to them as well if they want to do that. But, yeah, it puts their mind at ease to meet some guy in a parking lot somewhere. Yeah, no doubt.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. And so, again, the offer can be, hey, if they just want to get values and kind of figure out what they got or if they want to consign, if they consign, how’s your consignment program?
SPEAKER 07 :
It’s 20% on firearms. Depending on volume, we can adjust that a little bit, especially if there’s other things other than firearms, whether that might be – like i said a book collection a library tools machine tools lathes that sort of thing okay and then and we were kind of talking this before we came on air today but
SPEAKER 03 :
If you’re going to write them a check for a collection, everybody’s got to be fair-minded.
SPEAKER 07 :
We’ve got to make money as well.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, you’ve got to make some money. You don’t know how long you’ll have the guns, and you’re just trying to help that person be out.
SPEAKER 07 :
It’s transparent, 100% transparent. We’re going to tell you what market value is for that particular firearm, what we can get for it if we think we sell it for you as a representative, what it could potentially bring at auction if you want to submit it to an auction house, if it’s something that’s really rare, a place like Rock Island, for example. if we’re going to just buy it outright, but we’re going to be completely transparent on what the market value of that firearm is and what we can actually pay and what we can sell it for.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right, right. Brandon, I guess I’ll let you take this one. Don’t want you to go to sleep on me over there. I know. But we mentioned last time you guys were on, you guys kind of coming up with your own line of rifle, you know, precision type rifle and stuff. Kind of talk about some of the rifles you guys have and then about this.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yeah, we’re starting our own line of rifles. It’s called Shikari. There are three levels of the rifle. There is the Pathfinder, which is a composite stock, a bolt-action rifle. The Paragon, which is also a bolt-action. The ones we’re doing right now are built on a Wux chassis, so it’s a metal frame with wood forend and stock. And then the highest level is the Pinnacle. And it is a nice wood stock. We have some with some Florida Lee checkering. And those are in, like, the larger caliber, like, Safari rifle kind of area. We have a couple ones in .375 H&H. We do .416 Rig B. But we can do any of the larger Safari calibers you want. And, yeah, they’re all big game hunting rifles. So, yeah, those are basically bespoke rifles. They’re all made to order. And we can, I mean, we can do whatever you want. We can do stainless. We can… blew them, like we’re saying, do composite stocks, wood stocks, pretty much anything you can dream up, we can turn it into a reality.
SPEAKER 03 :
I think all you guys have to say, I mean, I’m older than everybody, but man, when you look back 20, 30 years ago at guns and things like that, I would have never dreamed shooting 1,600 yards. You look at all these long-range rifles and where all that market has gone. It has skyrocketed.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah. And one of the things with that is kind of the reason we’re wanting to start making our own custom rifles is – a part of the industry has been left behind your high you know dangerous game hunting rifles are a thing of the past now and so it’s near impossible to find a safari rifle and so that’s why we wanted to start doing this was to bring that back into the industry is getting people you know the firearms that they need for safari hunting and getting that going again because one of the hardest things is you know going on a hunt yeah you can rent guns down there but knowing what you’re going to be shooting before you actually go yeah is a completely different thing i mean we have customers all the time say oh i shot this gun and it scared me it scared me to death well that’s you know having guns here in the state that people can actually shoot and experience with is one of the things that we’re leaving behind in the industry
SPEAKER 03 :
Absolutely. Once again, the guys are with us from LT Arms, 8119 Schaefer Parkway in Littleton. And don’t want Keith to be mad at us. We left out Keith, our taxidermist, on the last show. You can buy the gun, you can fix the gun, then you can get your animal all ready to throw on the wall.
SPEAKER 11 :
exactly and that’s one of the nicest things about having a taxidermist in house is because you know we can talk to you everything about the hunt and getting you prepared for it but you go on this you know safari hunt with one of our custom rifles uh What are you going to do with the stuff that you just got? You spent $10,000 to get these animals. You want a trophy. And so having a good taxidermist is a great option. And there are some taxidermists out there that… the trophy doesn’t look that good right so having a trophy that you know is worth putting on your wall is a great thing and so knowing how to properly cape out a hide and stuff like that for the taxidermist is one of the nice things you can ask him questions and figure out how to do that before you even go on the hunt so when you bring it back it’s all ready to go and you don’t end up losing the trophy that you spent so much time and effort getting
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I know, and I’ve got several items in my house that Keith has done for me. Yeah, super guy, does a great job. So, again, you can stop by the store there, 8119 Schaefer Parkway, and talk to Keith as well. Now, a few weeks ago, we talked about some breaking news, and we couldn’t tell you all about it now, but we’re going to take the last couple of minutes here and talk about something pretty exciting.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, so for those that don’t know, we did move locations. Old shop was 8119 Schaefer Parkway in Littleton, Colorado. The new shop is 8130 Schaefer Parkway, Littleton, Colorado. So depending on which location you go to, it’s literally right across the street. It’s one of the nice things there. We didn’t go too far, so it’s not going to be that hard to find us. Just look for the sign on the street.
SPEAKER 03 :
And what does this move do for you?
SPEAKER 11 :
So this move makes it so that we can if you’ve been to our shop before, it was tight, cramped and all that. But here we have so much more space. We’re able to offer so many more options for people and just really grow the brand. That’s one of the nicest things is we can get our showroom is going to be a lot bigger. It’s going to be double the size. And then our gunsmithing area, they’re going to have way more space to do things that they need to be able to do, and we’re not going to be fumbling over each other. Right, right.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, cool. Hey, stop by and see them. Let them know you heard them here on Sportsman of Colorado, and we’d appreciate that as well. Last couple of minutes, but have you guys seen over these last few years a lot of first-time gun buyers? Oh, yeah, absolutely. It’s the first time they’ve been here. What’s some of the reasoning behind that? And again, kind of roundtable discussion here, but what are some of the reasons you’ve seen?
SPEAKER 13 :
A lot of first-time hunters are coming in. We’re getting a lot of guys that have moved here from out of state that want to take advantage of the whole Colorado outdoor lifestyle. And we’re getting a lot of guys. that come in, they know they want to hunt and they don’t have any idea where to start. And so that’s, that’s the nice thing about what we offer. We can kind of walk them down that path and get them, get them a gun, whether it’s something entry level that they want to start with, or a lot of guys, you know, they haven’t bought anything and they come in and they want to go full on custom or buy, you know, something, something outlandish and, and one-off to them, which is really, really nice. A lot of women coming in for… That was my next question. A lot of women coming in that have never even seen a gun and they want to take a concealed carry class and get their first pistol and They’re the ones that really require a lot of direction because, like I said, they don’t have any idea what’s going on, and a lot of them are still scared of guns.
SPEAKER 03 :
But women listen to you. They do. See, that’s the difference. Guys don’t listen. The guys know everything. That’s why women can out-shoot guys for the most part. They can.
SPEAKER 13 :
They get into it, and they get really good. And we’ve teamed up with Amanda Hardin from Lipstick Tactical, and she is doing a lot of classes on – Pistol shooting classes, but she’s also doing some less lethal defense methods and things like that. So if people are scared away from guns and they don’t want to go that avenue right off the bat, there are other options for self-defense and things that you can carry to protect yourself in our super safe city.
SPEAKER 06 :
Cool.
SPEAKER 07 :
haven’t you seen anything in that area interestingly some of the women that are coming in are first-time hunters as well and and a lot of the motivation that i’ve been discussing with them and their motivation is they want a cleaner food source they want to go out and harvest wild game naturally as opposed to buying something from a confined animal feeding operation and know what they’re getting to know what they’re serving their children is is naturally occurring as opposed to being you know manufactured if you will in a feedlot somewhere yeah very cool
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, Kyle, congrats on the new location. Yeah, thank you very much. Man, can’t wait to come over and see everything is all set up now. And get by and see them, 8130 Schaefer Parkway. Once again, it is LT Arms. And when you go in, mention you heard them here on the show. And, hey, great prices. Again, if you’ve got some guns, maybe you want to consign. You’re just not using them anymore. You want to consign. You just want to maybe sell them outright. Go by and see them. Let them know you’re over here on the show. And I promise you they’ll take great care of you. So, guys, thanks so much. Appreciate it. Thank you, Scott. Once again, it’s LT Arms. Get by and see them and let them know Scott sent you. Thanks for being with us today for Sportsman of Colorado. Hope you have a great rest of your day. Leave it right here on KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 10 :
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.
