Me and a couple family members are wanting to hunt elk in the fall of 2012 and I have been tasked with finding out all the info on it. First off, none of us have hunted elk prior. There will be five of us and of the five, 4 of us have hunted Oklahoma Whitetail pretty much every year for about the last 50 years. I am the odd man out and have just returned to hunting this year after being gone from it since I was a teenager and I am now in my late thirties.

I have googled elk hunting pretty extensivly for the last week or so and found that elk hunting is done in Washington, Oregon, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico and Pennsylvania. I have also learned that there are some kind of restricted hunts based on some type of point system and honestly I am starting to get confused by it all.

In oklahoma to hunt deer you go take your hunters safety course and pay for a liscence, then wait till the season starts and go buy either an antlered or antleress tag. Then it's just a matter of finding the deer on public land or getting permission to hunt on private land.

I think from all that I have read the last week that this is not the case for hunting Elk, or am I wrong? Is it possible for someone here to explain to me how it all works in the states I listed?

We are intersted in hunting on public land without a guide. I know that this will decrease our chances for success as we will all be first time elk hunters but were not overly concerned with bagging some monster beast but more interested in the adventure of being together as a family, seeing some scenery that isnt native to Oklahoma (like terrain that isnt all flat with corn fields and scrub oak) and maybee one or two of us actually getting to take a shot.

Colorado is closest to Oklahoma so that Is our first uneducated choice for a state but at this stage in the planning process we are not set on it.

Some help with picking a state that is right for us is appreciated.


PS.
I already have each state above's listed Department of fish and game / Wildlife websites found an bookmarked, and attempted to read through them, but it is all very different to Oklahoma and a bit confusing on how it works.