I'm not going to pay for the aoudad hunt and I'm pretty sure 280 is not going to do it, so we'll likely never do the bet.
I don't know what an elk would do on 200 acres, I've never seen it. I was thinking of hunting with a bow, and that he could run like hell, as 280 predicts he will, and he'll be out of bow range. That would make it a hunt. Hopefully, elk are smart enough, that he would hide again before I got over there where he ran with my bow. I'm not advocating that people do that, I was just reacting to the question posed above.
If the 200 acres was open enough for a 700 yard shot, and you hunted with a gun, it wouldn't be much of a hunt. Also, isn't it reasonable to say that anyone who knew much about hunting elk could come upon and shoot an elk in any decent public elk hunting area given a reasonable amount of time? If so, that would make a more reasonable comparison of the two hunts. I don't really hunt anyplace where I don't think I have a reasonable chance in a reasonable amount of time, to fill a tag. I don't think anyone would hunt anyplace that they didn't believe that. Unless you were hunting the 1 in a 100 trophy someplace, then people hunt places with a smaller chance of success, that is possible on a private ranch hunt also.
Here's an interesting example about how the ranch hunting is different. The guy that wins "Hunter of the Year" in Records of Exotics writes a story about it. Its 10 animals and you've got to have the biggest total score for the 10 that year to get it. You can win it multiple years if you keep getting a bigger one of the 10 and enter a new total. They are called the "Super Exotic Slam", the 10 animals, and are Axis, Fallow, Sika, Blackbuck, Mouflon, Aoudad, Corsican, Ibex, Red Deer, and Catalina. A few years back the guy who won it paid for a big red stag and the owner saved it for him, till he killed it. It took him two years, but he got a big red stag. That's different, but he still had to work at it and hunted hard, and got some neat animals doing it.
Would you call BS on the thick cover 200 acres hunting the one elk, with a bow, also? It would certainly be different, but I'm not sure its BS, but an elk is big. There are record books where that elk can go right now I know, just not B&C or P&Y, but I know TGR, Trophy Game Records of the World would take it, if there was lots of cover and you didn't do a drive, but just outsmarted the elk and got him. I'm sure of it, I just looked in their 1999 record book and there's lots of public, Indian reservation, and private ranches listed. They list, if there is a guide, an outfitter, its public or private, who got it, with what kind of weapon. Its neat because if a guy got it on his own in a public place with a bow, then you know he did a pretty good hunt. If he got it with a modern arm, on a ranch, with a guide and an outfitter, you know it was pretty much set up for him. All of that is listed in the book, besides how big and how nice the animal scored. They don't accept animals from drives or places where the animals can't hide or get away, that's basically they're fair chase criterion, TGR.
and showed them to my buddies and bragged about what a great fishermen I was.
