Sportsmen's Empire - Western Big Game Hunting
Oct 16, 2026 · 1 hr 1 min · 11 segments
Mule deer are Ethan Eskew’s obsession—but the real story is how he turns a full-time corporate job into a nearly year-round Western hunting routine. In this episode, Ethan and Dan talk about hunting…
So you're out there as much as humanly possible scouting.
You talked about if you find a big one, and you're, you're trying to see if he's killable on opening day through access, whether he's on public, getting permission on private, all of that stuff.
How many deer are you locating in that timeframe so that you have options, or are you only focusing on the biggest buck?
buck?Oh, man, I think that changes every year, and it, it is definitely different out here versus what I used to do in the East and in the Midwest.
I wanna have as many big ones as possible, and then I'm gonna kinda cherry-pick the most killable one.
Yeah
I'm trying to, I'm trying to put a lot of time in, into finding the biggest one, and I would say, honestly, starting this year, I've carried a much higher standard than in the past, and-
Yeah
Yeah
... like, they just don't, they don't grow mule deer in the plain states on average like they do in the Intermountain West, and they don't grow whitetail here like they do in some of the heart of the Midwest, right? So, like, when you have-
Yeah
Like, uh, this year, I just went into this year and I was like, "I'm gonna try to, like, really have high standards this year, and if I don't fill tags-
Yeah
Yeah
So you're out there as much as humanly possible scouting.
You talked about if you find a big one, and you're, you're trying to see if he's killable on opening day through access, whether he's on public, getting permission on private, all of that stuff.
How many deer are you locating in that timeframe so that you have options, or are you only focusing on the biggest buck?
buck?Oh, man, I think that changes every year, and it, it is definitely different out here versus what I used to do in the East and in the Midwest.
I wanna have as many big ones as possible, and then I'm gonna kinda cherry-pick the most killable one.
Yeah
I'm trying to, I'm trying to put a lot of time in, into finding the biggest one, and I would say, honestly, starting this year, I've carried a much higher standard than in the past, and-
Yeah
Yeah
... like, they just don't, they don't grow mule deer in the plain states on average like they do in the Intermountain West, and they don't grow whitetail here like they do in some of the heart of the Midwest, right? So, like, when you have-
Yeah
Like, uh, this year, I just went into this year and I was like, "I'm gonna try to, like, really have high standards this year, and if I don't fill tags-
Yeah
Yeah
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