Hi Steve, I have never had the opportunity to hunt out west. I would really really like to be able to do that someday, but I just don't know if I will ever be able to. We are over run with whitails here in WV, just not a lot of big ones. Access to land to hunt on is always the biggest problem. My passion now is bird hunting. I got a bird dog 6 years ago and we hunt pheasants in Pennsylvania on their state game lands. I do want to try to make a trip out to one of the pheasant states in the next year or two. You find those elk near where you live? Craig