In reply to: Travel Advice - Elk Hunting Guides in Wyoming? posted by ConnorMacManus
And I certainly don't read your reply as gratuitous at all. The short, direct answer is no - I have not killed anything the size of an elk. And if we're being honest, while I'd like to think I have the fortitude to pull the trigger, I suppose I won't know until the moment of truth.
I've shot plenty of birds and small animals, been around plenty of farm animals during slaughter, but always had shitty luck deer hunting (I just sat in the treestand freezing my ass off, and never had a deer come closer than 40 yards - too far for a clean bow kill). I went bear hunting when I was 13, but missed him - almost certainly due to nerves (as would any normal 13 year old I suppose).
But your point stands - there is a psychological element to large game that simply doesn't exist with smaller prey. Even my father, with probably over 40 deer taken in his lifetime, would tell you his heart still races every time. That's why he goes...
Despite growing up hunting with my father, in my adult life I've had little opportunity to go hunting at all, even less so with my father. My career has taken me all over the USA, and abroad (France) for the last four years, as you've heard before. As such, hunting has taken a back seat for the better part of two decades.
Having moved back stateside only two months ago, this was one of the first things I wanted to plan with my father. It's certainly one of his dreams, not just the hunt itself - but to do it and share it with me. I certainly want to do it with him, because the window of time where he will still be capable of it, it is closing quickly.
So even if I hike around the Bighorns for a week and never come within sight of an elk, it would still be time well spent with my father. But a tenderloin roasting over a campfire would probably make it better...
Museums and great halls all over Europe are filled with paintings and stories of hunting. Hell, the caves are too for that matter. Hunting as a rite of passage has existed for millenia. There's something elemental about it - inside all of us.
I'm hoping to share just a slice of that with the old man while he's still around...
My father is an avid hunter and still wants to shoot stuff as he gets older. Many animals I don't mind - deer, birds, other things that are plentiful to the point they can be a nuisance.
Big game, I just can't bring myself to shoot. Life's hard for elk and bears. I derive more satisfaction from conserving truly wild areas and animals than I would from hunting them.
some elk herds still need to be culled by someone. Re-introducing wolves into Idaho has had an affect on elk populations in some hunt zones but in other zones elk will overrun a ranchers crop. I've seen 100+ elk feeding in a ranchers field in the fall and summer. Then you have to look at winter range. You need enough forage on the winter range to support the herds. There often isn't enough and the elk starve. Most years Idaho has to set up feed stations for elk and deer in the winter.
I'm not sure that an elk has it any tougher than a deer (at least out west). I actually think it's the other way around. Elk can better tolerate the cold and deep snow, and have fewer predators.
But again...I don't disagree with you...in my mind there's no grander animal than a bull elk. I view and photograph elk much more often than I hunt them.
RMEF is a great organization to help support elk and elk habitat.
Just like deer can become a pestilence, there's some management required. Many populations like theirs strike me as super volatile, because their predators lose habitat and die out, then the prey populations grow and grow until the next cycle. The cycle is natural, but the variation is what gives me pause. I don't pretend we can fully control nature in that way, but we can certainly influence it by preserving habitats, culling populations, managing disease, etc.
west. I saw this pop up in my news feed over the last few days (it's an elk herd being hunted by a pack of wolves in Yellowstone). It doesn't reveal a conclusion, but reveals the struggles of both animals.