Elk Options

Bull elk are highly desired big game animals that require money or time--or both--to bag. There are several options on which you can spend--or not spend--your money and time.

A hunter with money to spare can book a hunt on a private ranch and cut down on the time required to find a big bull. A wilderness hunt is the way to go if you have both money and time; wilderness areas have little hunting pressure. With some work, you have a good chance at a solid bull, but you don't have to spend big bucks. With a little money you can apply for an area with a special permit that really ups your chance of shooting a big bull. A hunter with a regular tag valid on public land needs to do his homework well before fall to determine when and where elk are taken; this information really cuts down on the legwork.

Here's a look at several hunting options that you could consider:

Ranch Hunts

Rob Arnaud (arnaudoutfitting.com) guides elk hunters on several large ranches across the West. On these ranches he manages the elk for older bulls and for a bull-to-cow ratio approaching sixty bulls per 100 cows.

Arnaud says that his clients only take 7 percent of the matures bulls on a given ranch during a single season, "so a hunter is going to see lots of bulls and be able to pick and choose the one he wants." Every year Arnaud's hunters take many bulls that score 350 to 370 Boone & Crockett points.

Arnaud and his guides use vehicles to chauffeur their hunters around. Once a bull is spotted, though, the hunt proceeds on foot.

"It's not easy and you're going to work for your bull," Arnaud says. "The [fair chase] ethics and the traditions of the hunt are still there. It's just that the numbers and the quality of the bulls on our ranches is so high, it doesn't take as long to take a good bull."

A hunt usually runs four days on one of these ranches. That privilege will cost a hunter upwards of $12,000 on the ranches Arnaud hunts.

Other ranch hunts are available for about a third as much. These hunts are also from a vehicle and a hunter will see plenty of elk. The chances are still there to kill a mature 6-point bull, but these ranches usually operate on quantity over quality. Then again, who's to say a 5-point bull is not a fine elk.

Wilderness Hunts

A wilderness pack trip is the traditional way to hunt big bulls, but it's just as much an escape from civilization as a hunt. The world moves at the pace of a laden mule on a pack train hunt deep into the wilderness. Just reaching camp may require a day or even two of riding. Riding out each morning to search lodgepole pine ridges and timberline basins for elk, then riding back to camp each evening, takes more time. The ring of an axe splitting firewood for the wall tent stove is a gentle alarm clock. But the time is well spent seeing sunrises spread orange across the eastern horizon, bear tracks in the mud of the trail and perched blue grouse cocking their heads inquisitively. The icing on the cake is tasted when a bull bugles, then comes to the gun.

Two years ago I went on a September hunt into Montana's Scapegoat Wilderness with Paw's Up Outfitters (pawsup.com). The view stretched long and wide. The mountains ran up against one another and limestone reefs pushed into the sky then fell straight down from the Continental Divide into blue forests in the distance.