Hunting · Big Game · Elk
The benchmark North American hunt: a 700-pound animal that screams at you in the dark timber and lives where the walking is hardest.
Elk hunting is the hunt most people build a decade around. A mature bull weighs as much as a horse, lives in steep dark timber and high alpine parks, and during the September rut he will answer a bugle and come looking for a fight.
It is also brutally hard. Roughly one in five elk hunters kills an elk in a given year, and the ones who do usually cover 8–12 miles a day at 8,000–10,000 feet and then carry the animal out in four to six loads.
The good news for a newcomer: Colorado and Idaho still sell over-the-counter bull tags, and millions of acres of national forest are open to anyone with a license and the legs to get away from the road.
01
Elk states divide into over-the-counter opportunity (high hunter density, real chances), general-draw states, and limited-entry trophy units where the wait is measured in decades.
| Place | Why it's worth your time | How you get a tag |
|---|---|---|
| Colorado | Largest elk herd on earth (~280,000); OTC archery and 2nd/3rd rifle bull tags | Over-the-counter for bulls in most units; cows and premium units by draw |
| Idaho | Vast wilderness, general-season tags, and genuine backcountry solitude | OTC general tags by zone, capped and sold first-come starting in December |
| Montana | Big public country and a general elk tag inside the combination license | Nonresident combination license by random draw, April 1 deadline |
| Wyoming | High success rates and excellent bull quality; wilderness areas require a guide for nonresidents | Preference-point draw; general tags around 3–5 points |
| Arizona & New Mexico | The biggest bulls in North America on limited-entry units | Pure draw; premium Arizona units take 10–20 bonus points, New Mexico is a random lottery |
| Oregon, Washington & Utah | Roosevelt elk in coastal rainforest and strong Rocky Mountain herds | General and limited tags depending on unit and weapon |
02
September elk hunting is won or lost on wind and calling discipline in the dark; October and November rifle season rewards the hunter who finds pressure-free timber.
03
Elk sign is unmistakable once you have seen it — everything is oversized and the animals move in herds, so they leave a highway rather than a trail. The trick is aging it, because a herd may be six miles away by the time you find where they were.
4–4.5 in.
Big, rounded, and blunt with a distinct notch at the rear — closer to a cow's print than a deer's. Bulls run 4.5 inches and wider with rounded tips; cows are narrower and more pointed. Sharp-edged tracks with crisp dirt crumbs are hours old; rain-rounded edges are days old.
Pellets or pats
Large 3/4-inch pellets on dry browse, or a loose cow-pie-like pat on green spring and summer forage. Glossy, dark, and slick means minutes to hours. Dull and crusted means a day or more. Steam in cold air means put your rifle in your hands.
Massive
Trees stripped to bare white wood 3–6 feet up, often on conifers as thick as your thigh, with broken branches and shredded bark below. A fresh rub weeping sap on a September morning means a bull is in that drainage right now.
Rut hotspot
Muddy, urine-soaked depressions at seeps and springs, churned to soup and reeking. Fresh tracks in the mud rim and a strong smell mean daily use — one of the highest-percentage archery setups in elk hunting.
Herd sign
Big matted ovals in dark north-slope timber, often a dozen together. During the rut the herd advertises itself: bugles at dawn and dusk, cow mews all day, and the crack of branches as they move through blowdown.
04
There are two viable paths: buy an over-the-counter tag and hunt this year, or apply in the point states and hunt a better unit in five to fifteen years. Serious elk hunters do both simultaneously.
05
September archery elk is the loudest hunt in North America. Bulls bugle before dawn, and you move toward the sound in the dark, trying to get inside 60 yards of a herd bull with a harem before the thermals swing and give you away.
It is a calling game and a wind game at the same time. Cow calls pull satellite bulls; an aggressive bugle can turn a herd bull. Mountain thermals sink at night and rise after the sun hits the slope, so the same approach that works at 6 a.m. is fatal at 10 a.m.
Rifle season in October and November is a different hunt: quieter animals, higher country or lower depending on snow, and far more glassing. You hunt escape cover and the timbered pockets between pressured drainages.
The physical reality is the part nobody prepares for. A boned-out bull is 200–250 pounds of meat that must come out on your back or with stock, typically over several miles and thousands of feet of elevation, and the work starts at the moment of highest exhaustion.
Expect to hunt six to ten hard days for one opportunity. The hunters who succeed year after year are the ones still walking on day eight.
06
Not a shopping list — the six or so items that change whether you fill the tag and whether the meat gets home in good condition.
Setup
For rifle: .30-06, .300 Win Mag, 7mm Rem Mag, or 6.5 PRC with a bonded or monolithic bullet. For archery: 60+ lb draw, a fixed or robust mechanical broadhead, and confidence to 50 yards.
Archery September
A diaphragm and external reed cow call plus a bugle tube. Learn the cadence from real recordings; over-calling educates more bulls than it kills.
5,000+ ci frame
The pack is the tool that turns a dead bull into food. Practice carrying 80 pounds up a hill before the season, not after the shot.
Meat care
Six large synthetic game bags, a replaceable-blade knife with spare blades, and a bone saw or the gutless method to break the animal down where it fell.
Mountain weather
September can be 75°F at noon and snowing that night. Waterproof boots, real rain gear, and a puffy in the day pack every single day.
Safety
There is no cell service in elk country. An inReach or similar device is a genuine life-safety item when you are alone at 10,000 feet.
07
A bull elk is 600–700 pounds of animal on the ground, often at 9,000 feet, three miles from the truck. The work starts when the shooting stops.
08
Almost every elk is broken down gutless, in the field, and carried out in pieces. Learn this before you go, not during.
09
A mature bull yields 200–250 pounds of boneless meat — more food than any other common North American big game and the single best argument for hunting elk.
Use the gutless method: quarter the animal on the ground, bag it immediately, and hang the bags in shade. Meat spoils from the inside of a thick quarter outward, so get air on it and cool it fast.
Elk is mild, lean, and beef-like. Backstraps as steaks, hindquarters as roasts and steaks, everything forward of the ribs into grind and braise cuts.
Seasons, fees, and draw rules change every year. These are the agencies and organizations that publish the current numbers — always confirm with them before you apply or hunt.
Habitat work, public-access projects, and state-by-state elk population data.
Over-the-counter tag rules, unit maps, and published harvest statistics.
Zone-by-zone tag quotas and on-sale dates for general nonresident tags.
Motor vehicle use maps and wilderness boundaries for planning access.
Questions
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Keep going
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Read →Plan a September backcountry hunt — spike camp, water, resupply, and meat-out logistics.
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