Info On A 2012 Rifle Elk Hunt
 

Guys I need help, myself and a few friends want to do a rifle elk hunt in 2012. I've been hunting for 31 years for whitetails, bears, and turkey and been on numerous outfitter hunts, and I have a small outfitting business in Illinois.

My questions for the rifle elk hunt would be:

Which state would give me a chance at a decent to better then decent bull?

What should a hunt like this cost?

What should tags cost?

Thanks for the help

Hi Bowhuntercop,this guys a member on this site http://www.elkoutfitters.com/ hope this helps.

Jerry, thanks for the info

Guided or unguided? New Mexico offers the most options on better than average bulls but most states have units that will give them up too if you can get drawn. Colorado unit 61 has good bulls but it takes like 14 years or more to get drawn. With NM you can find a hunt (if your doing a paid hunt) that has landowner vouchers included in the hunt price that will allow you to buy your license OTC. A guided hunt on private land with landowner voucher included that will offer high % opportunities at bulls in the 320 range and up will legitimately start around $8500.

I was gonna suggest NM...or WY

Thanks for the info guys, I know that NM, AZ, UT, and even Nevada gives much better chances on a great bull, but the price tag is well over what we want to pay. From talking with my friends the states of Montana, Colorado, Wyoming came up, we have seen some hunts in the $4000 or less range. Just wondering how good of the outfitters are and how good the areas they hunt are

Here's one Bowhuntercop http://montanaoutfitters.org/ should beable to find an outfitter in MT. anyway.

So you want a guided/outfitted hunt?

I would avoid trying to find the cheapest elk hunt I could btw...get referrals, talk to as many clients who have hunted with the outfitter.

You can find reasonable hunts in NM, especially if you draw the tag first and hunt on public land.
I recently was quite shocked at the price of a elk hunt in MT on public land!

You looking for a rifle hunt? bow?

guided rifle hunt

You can get a really good quality NM guided rifle elk hunt for under $5000 but even though a 300+ bull is a possibility it may not be the norm for that caliber of hunt.

Often the private land hunt prices here in NM come down as the season gets closer and the landowners have unsold tags. Of course, they will not be the most sought-after dates, but you can still get some good late season rifle hunts for around $5K instead of the $7K to $8K range.

Now we are thinking of a bow hunt, what would be the best time for a elk bow hunt so we can take advantage of the excitement of the elk rut?

On our ranch in Northern NM the best archery hunt is the last 9-10 days of the bow season, so around Sept 12-22 or so. We called in a huge bull on labor day weekend last year and they were only just getting going. I'd expect you would want to hunt just a bit earlier in the Gila area, which warms up sooner.