Mikenc,
I am one of the biggest proponants of wild game hunting but it has become a reality in this day and age that its simply not possible for many of us to take the time or spend the investment in the "POSSIBILITY" to harvest a bull elk in the wild.
If you hire a good outfitter and can get lucky enough to draw some highly desired permits, you have a much better chance of getting a wild elk and a good one at that. That said, no outfitter will garantee you a shot opportunity, just out of their power.
Living in Montana it may sound strange but I do not have the time to put into elk hunting. Just can not take that much time away from the shop for the time required to get a good crack at a good bull in the wild. Most outfitters around here that have 370 to 400" potential bull elk in the area will charge around $10K for a weeks hunt. If you shoot a bull its easier to swallow, if you do not and there is a real chance you will not or shoot a much smaller bull, the bill is still $10K!!!
I am a whitetail hunting nut. Love it over all other hunting I have done so far in my life. As such, I sped alot of time doing it but I can do that and still get work done in the shop. I can not do that for elk so I did some research on some elk hunting ranches.
There are many good hunting ranches out there that will offer you as much of a hunt as you care to make it. Personally, if I had not been testing my new 338 AX and the new Wildcat 265 gr AT RBBT for Richard Graves, I would have probably used one of my specialty single shot handguns and the hunt would have been a SERIOUS challange even with 400 yard reach on my handguns.
Point being, if you want to do it, look into some of these ranches, THere are many in several western states including Several in Nebraska, Idaho, Utah and Colorado to choose from. Look into them and you will find that many will get you hunts that are very little different if any different then a wild elk hunt. Only that your odds of shooting a big bull are much higher.
There are certainly some very low class places to shoot elk. I am not talking about those, I am talking about hunting on ranches that have more then a square mile of hunting area and often many times this much area to hunt.
If you want a big elk, you can get one. Making it as much of a hunt as possible, that will depend on your research and the specific ranch you go to but there are great hunting challanges out there to be had on high fence hunting ranches. It makes many burr up hearing that but its a fact that most of us just do not have the time or resources to take two weeks a year to travel and hunt wild elk. Simple fact.
Kirby Allen(50)
