agreed a good trophy bull without an outfitter for a 1st time elk hunt, good luck!
without having preference points in states that produce trophy elk you'd either have to wait a number of years to build up points or get lucky or just hire an outfitter and hunt private land etc...
your best bets in my opinion for a trophy elk do it yourself, would be arizona which will probably take 10 years of applying before you draw a quality unit, or get lucky in new mexico. you can hunt colorado any year you want but the odds of getting a 6x6 diy 300"+ are stacked against you.