To answer a few more questions. Apparenty it is not leagal at this time to hunt elk in the UP. The only part of the state to hunt is the northern lower. I don' t want to give all of my secrets out, but the best places in the state seem to be along US 32.
Between Alpena and Gaylord, in that general area. If anyone has anyother hot spots for elk in Michigan I would love to hear them.

As someone said, May your arrows fly straight and your bullets be full of powder!

Did I say that right?

Coach

Coach thanks for clearing that up.
Rather be,
I was just stating my opion on the subject.Our society has gone from rural to urban one.We are frowned at for feeding our familys or taking our kidds hunting or showing the how to use a gun or bow instead of going to the supper market. It is not a question of what tools we use as hunters it how well we are woodsmen.Is the bow more efective than the gun maybe.I track and follow wounded animals every that are shot with bows,made by hunters who neglect their duties of being hunters I do the same with the hunters with guns.We as a organization of hunters need not bend to the winds of animal rights,or hide our guns in fear of losing them.We all need to take a stand.If we want to keep our heritige we need to take an active voice and show the pepole aroud us that we are competant in what we are doing.Thats my $.02 worth.
Coach if I were you I would buy a new rifle.Belive me when the time comes and you miss that chance it will haunt you the rest of your life.Happy Huntin

If you brother in law is seeing a lot of elk in the UP, then it must be right after he' s been hitting the old moonshine still! LOL

And for you coach, I' d wait until you actually draw that tag before buying a new gun!

Come on msuron, (I hope that' s not pronounced " miss urine" )

We can all use an " excuse" to buy a new gun. Most of us hafta justify it to the wife, kids, girlfriend or ourselves. []

If Coach is married, and the wife buys the " justification," then I say go for it. Get the gun already. [:-]

T.R.

Nice jab TR. The 2nd part of the name is my first name. The first part is for Michigan State University.

Agree, nobody should need an excuse to purchase a new gun. But buying one in case you draw an elk tag here (in Michigan), is like buying one because you' re going to win the lottery. I have been applying for one of those elusive tags every year to no avail. I did however draw a tag for GMU 201 in Colorado this year because of the state' s preference point system (and it only took 14 years). My advice to Coach would be to start applying in Western states because you at least have a legitimate chance for a tag!

One more item TR. Really love all the information I get from this site. Keep up the good work.

MSUron

MSURON,

I was obviously hoping you wouldn' t be offended.

Thanks, and I' ll try to keep the semi-relevant, semi-important stuff coming.

If I really wanted to hunt elk, I' d go west young man, go west.

T.R.

I' m not saying don' t have pride about being a hunter and a gun owner, I know I' m proud and I don' t hide it one bit. I' m saying we should be gunowners and hunters that are as resposnsible as we can possibly be. I used to have the attitude of I' m a hunter and if you don' t like it then stick it where the sun don' t shine. But I' ve learned over time thats a dangerous attitude to have. We should have pride about being a hunter but we have to care how the general public views us within our hunting activities. You' ll find a lot antis actually don' t understand hunting and label us cruel red-necks who shoot everything that moves. They don' t understand management plans and how it benefits the eco-system. Imagine their surprise when I tell them we work very hard at harvesting animals quickly, cleanly and never take a chance at going over the bag limit. And when I tell them that those animals give their lives for us so we buy the best equipment we can afford to harvest them as cleanly as we can. We practice all year long to be accurate with our rifles and bows and we feed our familys with our harvest. And that killing a few saves the many in the winter. Changed a few back that way. Could' ve just called them a ----ing idiot and moved on. The ones that don' t change almost always commend me for my ethics saying most hunters they know aren' t like that. And thats the problem.

A bow and a rifle kill in different ways so thats comparing apples to oranges. Every year people make bad shots on animals and they wind up making an anti out of somebody that sees the animals dead with a bullet hole in it on the side of the road or see it run through a campground with blood all over it. Around here in Salt Lake every year we have animals that die in yards and in front of restaraunts that have been shot. Do you know what side the media takes when these incidents happen? And like it or not about 80% of the population in the US in on the fence as far as hunting. They decide the future. We need to have pride but we also need to be responsible. 30-30 on elk is no longer a elk rifle for the rookie. I' ve tracked elk that others have shot in my party more than 2 miles and up to 2 days before. They usually stop bleeding before they expire and you' re very lucky to find them. That doesn' t always happen but I' ve seen too many wounded animals using that rifle.

As far as bending to the wind of anti-hunters, you will never find me giving them any ground. In fact my stand against a 30-30 for rookie elk hunters is indented to take ammunition away from those hippie types.