Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Advice

I have been watching and dreaming of elk hunting since I was a kid. But with my profession thought it was a more of a wait and maybe in a few years kind of thing. I have been trying to look into doing it next year and have watched more videos on tag applications and where to apply than I can count. I also have emailed a few guides off of searches but there is no way I could tax my family that kind of money. So I guess I was hoping for some starting points.

State - I would like to drive from the Midwest so any will do
Bull or Cow - wouldnt matter much to me.
My family consumes a lot of game meat. Chance of success is preferred over sex.
Rifle or Bow - doesn’t matter to me - have been bow hunting for 30+ years, a former marine infantryman and an avid outdoorsman/hunter since I could walk.

An added bonus would be if I could trailer and use my horses. If feasible this would be awesome. I have good horses and this would push a great experience into a once in a lifetime kind of thing.

I appreciate any advice because all of my research online has yielded a bit of frustration

I grew up in Colorado and share your frustration. Hunting was easy growing up. We could hunt elk close to home and there were elk to hunt. Co dept of wildlife culled our herd so heavily that going home to hunt is just walking or riding trails vacationing now. The heavily pressured herd has moved off national forest through blm to the canyons between farm ground. Access is tough as private blocks the blm below. Yes it is just changing times but living through it wasn’t fun trip.
To be fair, the elk finding the alfalfa in the 1980’s and resulting crop damage payments drove the culling but they way overdid it in my opinion.
there are good hunting areas still but finding them on the internet will be tough. The center part of the Colorado still holds a lot of elk as does nw Colorado. Hold lots of hunters too.

Thanks for the reply

Cow hunt in Colorado. PM me if you need a starting point.

Idaho's got to be a fiasco with non-res tags and they're pricey. You can apply for a draw but non-res are limited to 10% of the total tags for each hunt. Usually the drawing odds are pretty low. There are a few OTC hunts but they put a quota on non-res tags for each one. This year they put them all on sale at the same time and it turned into a disaster. They got overwhelmed by people wanting tags, far more than any year in the past. They had 64,000 people online at the same time and it crashed the system. I heard reports of people being online for up to 8 hours waiting in line.

As with many states, getting the tag is the hardest part of the hunt.

Just go. Honestly, just go. Don't over think it, there's no perfect place, there's no perfect hunt. Just go. Pick a state, get a tag and just go. Start figuring it out on your own.

A cow tag is always easier to draw, as there are about 5 times as many cows as bulls. Archery hunting success ratio is about 1/2 or less of rifle hunting. It use to be quoted as 18-20 % for rifle and 10-11% for archery. Due to ever increasing number of hunters I believe it is more like 14-15% for rifle and 5% for archery. So factor in those two statistic before choosing sex and what to use

Season wise, you can buy an Over the Counter tag (OTC) for 2nd and 3rd rifle season and archery for some big game units. Colorado is divided into Units and you select which unit you want to hunt in. Many units are lumped into one big area. I don't know of any OTC units that are not tremendously over crowded and success ratio is probably at least half of units that require a to draw a tag in a lottery.

Weather is a big factor too. Of the four rifle seasons the first season is more likely to have warmer weather, but that effects the success kill ratio. The later the season, the more chance of snow which could limit access to hunt areas, but success kill ratio climbs, especially for cows since they will be herded up more and at lower elevations if the snow is deep in the high country.

Horses will definitely get you into better country. Many areas in Colorado are Wilderness designated and ATV or any motorized/wheeled vehicle is not permitted . So it is either back packing or horses/mules. If successful, those horses will be invaluable in packing 300-400's of meat back to your truck. IF, and that is a big IF, the horses will pack meat, you have the experience to do so, and are very familiar with handling horses. You cannot depend on there being forage for your stock, the later the season the less there will be. Therefore,you will need weed free certified hay or any processed feed . Water is a big concern. You will have to camp near a good water source. The later the season the more of a chance the water will be frozen up. Lack of water will kill your horses.Then you get into the problems of the horse being hobble broke, high line or picketing broke and the possibility of encountering moose, and bears, or even the occasional llama.

On the plus side, horses will expand your hunting territory and make you more mobile. A lot of foot hunters will exhaust themselves in 3 days hiking around 10,000 ft elevations. With horses, you can hunt hard all day and all you have to worry about is having enough energy to crawl back into the saddle. However, they will add an hour to an hour and a half to you camp chores morning and evening and taking care of them during the day.

For your first hunt, I would seriously recommend this guy and hunt Wyoming. http://www.headinwest.net/ The learning curve is tremendous and it is money well spent. Most of the time, new hunters spend 5 years + before being successful .

Someone mentioned, " just go,don't over think it ". That is fine if you want to go on a camping trip and hike around with a rifle. 10% of the hunters, kill 90% of the elk, they don't do that with that kind of attitude.

Lessee now....
By the late 1920's--depending on who we ask or what we read--there were somewhere between 500 to 5000 elk in Colorado.

By 1960 there were ~50,000 elk in Colorado.

By 1980 there were ~120,000 elk in Colorado.

By 1990 there were ~220,000 elk in Colorado.

By 2000 there were ~300,000+ elk in Colorado. That represented an over-population of elk.

Colorado significantly increased cow tags for the next 10-15 years, which resulted in harvest figures and success rates which will probably never be duplicated on a statewide level again.

Today we have somewhere between 260,000 and 280,000 elk in Colorado.

Things have indeed changed to make elk hunting success for bulls harder than it was, say, in the 80's and through the 90's, but at this juncture it's not a lack of elk. Although there are factors out there that could change this.

Generally cow elk hunting success depends on drawing a tag if one wants to put enough effort into the hunt. The success rate on cow elk in the 1970's was around 80%, today it's around 40%. In the 70's drawing a cow tag was rare and something to be celebrated. Small number of cow elk hunters resulted in high success. As the number of cow elk tags increased over the years the success rate decreased. An increase in the number of big game hunters in the field have always correlated to decreased hunting success.

SaddleSore,
In some of if not most of the OTC archery units where cow elk can be killed with a bull tag the success rate of archers can meet or even exceed that of OTC rifle bull tags.

Bmedin,
Fist thing I would do is look to acquire elk preference points various states. Generally you have to give them money for those PP's but even a couple elk PP's gets a lot better chance to draw a cow or even a bull tag that has greater chance of killing one.

For Colorado, get a 2022 Big Game brochure if you can. The 2023 Brochure usually doesn't come out until a month or so before the big game draw deadline and then you have time constraints to deal with. The Big Game brochure is also online.

Then go here and take a look at the PP requirements for a tag for each hunt code. https://cpw.state.co.us/thingstodo/Pages/Statistics.aspx

Some units still take zero PP's to draw a cow tag. Sometimes it's because the elk aren't around there during that time of year. In Colorado altitude is sometimes important because it's too high for elk by the time rifle seasons roll around. Expecially because the 2md, 3rd, and 4th rifle seasons are now two weeks later then they used to be.

Only because of the total number of OTC rifle tags sold vs OTC archery tags. There are still only so many elk to be killed. Studies have been done that show if you put a limited number of hunters in an a certain area, XXX number of animals will be killed. Increase the number of hunters and about the same number of animals will be killed. My opinion only, but I suspect when a NR pays in the realm of $800 for an OTC or draw elk tag, they will l pass on a lot of cows. I did mention that success rates for rifle OTC units are reduced by at least 1/2 vs draw units. Either way, from what the OP noted, he was very concerned about killing an elk and it is my opinion, that an OTC tag whether it is archery or rifle reduces that probability and even more so with an archery tag. If you compare cow kills with a rifle vs archery only, I am sure the difference would be about the same

Statistics given by CPW of kills is for all seasons , for all elk for all means of kills. So I suspect those %'s are a little off for each season. You probably scour the statistics more than I do and there are probably kill ratio numbers for each season.

No worries though. OP asked for advice, and gave my opinions and others may differ.

SS,
That's kind've what I said--increased hunters results in decreased success rate.

The success rate of archery vs rifle is expressed in a percentage, so it does matter if 10 archery hunters kill 2 elk--the success is 20% If 50 rifle hunters kill 10 elk than the success rate is still 20%. But.....archery has a almost 30 day season while rifle has a 5-9 day season. Archers have more opportunity and there is also a ratio that can be used to determined success on per day hunted basis.

Yes, NR's tend to hunt longer and harder than the average resident and that often results in higher success rates for NR's.

And yes, statewide success rate is worth what it is. Hunt code success rate is more telling for a hunter. Although management is generally looking at it from a DAU perspective.

Your contributions are always good SS!

This^^^

My pick would be this outfitter in NW Wyoming. Huge tracks of land and they offer cow elk hunts for three days. They are 100% or, close to 100% on these hunts, and I have very good second-hand info on these people from friends who’ve done these hunts for years. Granted, it’s an outfitter, and the hunt costs $3k (these were $2300 a year or so ago but like everyone in this country they are suffering from “Bidenflation”) but that includes your food and lodging. Stop to think what it would cost on your own, the gear you would need, food, logistics, etc. to make a serious attempt. Then the $3k isn’t so much more. This outfitter would be a very good start to get your “elk legs” under you so to speak. Also, I think it’s pretty easy to get this tag in Wyo, but this outfitter usually fills up fast, so you might want to get on it.

https://www.skyline-outfitters.com/

Best,
George

Have you considered a elk hunt in canada? Alberta, Sask ?? There are a couple options. You can pay for a guided hunt or have a resident hunter host you...under a hunter host licence you can hunt for the cost of the tag and licence fees ( under 400$ CDN) as the hunter host cannot take payment...not certain about getting meat back state side but I'm certain its possible. Anyways with the cdn dollar how it is right now it's probably much cheaper than a out of state hunt...https://albertaregulations.ca/huntingregs/licencecosts.html#:~:text=Prior%20to%20purchasing%20any%20licence,Wildlife%20Certificate%2C%20which%20costs%20%2468.22.
You would be looking at non resident alien for costs... then you just have to find a hunter host... or look for a guided elk hunt.
Just giving you an outside the box idea.

A good option if you don't have a pile of preference points is landowner cow tags, every year I see them for 500.00 and up. Wyoming doesn't use points on reduced price cow tags either.

This is some of the best advice in the thread. I began elk hunting exactly the way the OP is suggesting, minus the horses, and would have been much better served by going with an outfitter. In addition to the cost of gearing up being fairly close to that of a guided cow hunt (as George accurately pointed out), I didn't have the time to scout elk, nor did I really know how to find them with any real skill or consistency. I hunted CO first rifle season, which is only five days. It's not easy for a brand new elk hunter to roll into an unfamiliar area, find elk and punch a tag in five days. I look at a guide the same way I would view an education. Pay your tuition and enjoy the benefits for the remainder of your life.

As a side note, the shot opportunities out west usually come and go much faster than the typical deer hunting we are used to in the Midwest. We get spoiled out here, waiting for deer to turn at just the right angle for our preferred shots. Do that out in the mountains and you'll likely be waiting a very, very long time. Be ready to take a quick shot the moment you get a good opportunity.

PM me interested. I have hunted with horses or mules for about 50 years and know the in's and out's.

Man!!! You guys are great! What an amazing amount of good responses. All of the information would have saved me hours over the past week. Thank you all very much. I think I am going to start by reaching out to those outfitters and go from there. The prices I was getting quoted were WAY more than that and it seemed like a ride in a truck and shoot off the tailgate kind of thing and I’m not really interested in that.

I emailed you SS. I am still a rookie on here and it won’t let me PM. I want to say again how impressed with you guys I am. I did an Ironman this past year and was a rookie at that and can’t tell you how many forums I got on looking for advice where people were elitist and just run new people down. The fact you guys took the time and careful consideration with your posts really says a lot - cheers to all!

I guess no one will need to tell you to work on your cardio!!!