First nothing against you, salukipv1 -- you are simply articulating a fact.

I do not consider myself to be a trophy hunter and am dubious about trophy hunting as a sport. As suggested above, taking a bull elk with trophy sized rack becomes a paying proposition. Large racks become commercialized, value gets extracted from large racks. While an above averge rack is . . . above average, so what? It seems people take rack size as almost a measure of hunting prowess or skill. In a bet on who would score the larger rack, I would place my money on the novice hunter able to pay $35,000 to hunt in a trophy unit assisted by a highly paid guide against a 40 year elk hunting veteran hunting on normal public land any day. Is skill the differentiator?

I think regular hunters somehow get swept up in this rack size thing without really thinking about it. I think it is a distraction and leads us away from the true nature and honest pleasure of hunting. It also makes us vulnerable to the marketeering of businesses. Can you take elk without laser range finders? Yes. If you were hunting for Mr Big and your only chance of taking him might involve a long shot where determining range is critical to making a hit (of course, highly practiced shooting skills would also be critical in addition to ranging), would a a laser range finder POSSIBLY give you an advantage? Yes. If you are dead set on bagging Mr Big, the laser range finder just wouldn't be important -- you would shoot another elk.

If a trophy elk is defined to be a bull elk having a rack in the upper 98th percentile of bull elk taken, what does this imply? That 98 percent of elk hunters are losers? They didn't take the bull with the exceptional rack.