From a ranch, but HOLY CRAP!

Addicting said:
I wondered about that too. With all the calcium and other nutrients it was injected with or consumed to get massive growth, I wondered what it does to the meat.

I can’t imagine that it would taste the same as a normal elk. Maybe that is a good thing for Meateater to discuss with the meat Scientists.
Click to expand...
Like the guys who buy show pigs from the fair.
 
nick87 said:
A lot of it is in the breeding but yah they're pretty pumped up with supplement amd show feed, pretty lean carcass and the meat fibers are different imo.
Click to expand...
Yeah, give me the fat hog laying in the mud hole over the shaved “show” pig any day. The looks over functionality thing is so stupid to me.

Cattle are going the opposite way. Breeding heifer shows put the fat cattle shows to shame these days.



I got asked to keep my opinions to myself when I remarked about the “champion” “breeding” heifer last year. I said: “if that fat hog ever did breed you’d have to pull any calf she would have because she’s so fat and lazy”

That was to the beef superintendent after a couple drinks.
 
Well I am "On the Fence" here, 10k acres is a ton of land and there are a bunch of elk i think that are born there. I was looking into going there, for the same thing. My wife is paying for me an elk hunt as a birthday gift. I have looked all over at outfitters and some private land areas. My line of work i only get a few days a year i can actually take, and my vacation falls outside of elk season! So it makes it super tough to go anywhere on a backcountry hunt for 7 days etc. I have to fly and all that, so it makes sense to go somewhere that offers a better margin. Once in a lifetime hunt, someone may want to go there. Now the cost honestly is crazy, but management bull isnt bad. I went to Utah OTC this past september, i did a swap hunt, gator for an elk. Guy was a guide, etc. guaranteed me atleast an opportunity at a spike. Well after everything he changed the dates and it was after spike season, then cut the trip short 3 days. I had 4k invested after everything thinking i was going on a true elk hunt. Heck it took me everything just to take the days off. So there are certain times where this style hunt may suit someone. While i was out there, the guy i was with was guiding 2 others same time as me(again he failed to mention that) he took them to a 1k acre high fence place and they killed a cow and a smaller bull. We actually walked and kicked the bull up for them to shoot. NOW that is not for me! To each there own though. My wife has told me she will allow me one more chance to go somewhere to try and get it done. I have only 2 points for wyoming, and everything else is OTC. I do not have that much time to take off, so i am trying to plan the perfect elk hunt. I only care to kill a legal bull and does not need to be big! Every day i am planning and praying maybe i get drawn for new mexico or something. I may only have 3-4 days to hunt though but we will see.
 
Interesting question on high fence. Can drones be used to find the "elusive quarry"? Enough cell cams strategically located on known travel corridors to electronically track the "elusive" quarry. 10,000 acres sounds like a lot of land but significant portions of can be eliminated no different what we do scouting huge expanses of land. How much is actually huntable? I will also bet this bull was purchased from an elk breeding farm for the genetics specifically to achieve the mass. Does the farm feed the elk from tractor pulled feeding wagons like cattle? The top pricing is "Upgrade bull", is there a bidding "war" based on cam photos? Heck, since this is a business operation for shooting fish in barrel, gps tracker inserted on bull when it was "released into the wild" of the killing farm? As far as I am concerned this is maybe snail slime above remote electronic killing of an animal from your recliner.

Let me be clearer, I believe there is a slimy underbelly to this whole process that would really piss us off.

The term "Fair Chase" just got embarrassed beyond understanding.
 
HUNT4JESUS said:
Well I am "On the Fence" here, 10k acres is a ton of land and there are a bunch of elk i think that are born there. I was looking into going there, for the same thing. My wife is paying for me an elk hunt as a birthday gift. I have looked all over at outfitters and some private land areas. My line of work i only get a few days a year i can actually take, and my vacation falls outside of elk season! So it makes it super tough to go anywhere on a backcountry hunt for 7 days etc. I have to fly and all that, so it makes sense to go somewhere that offers a better margin. Once in a lifetime hunt, someone may want to go there. Now the cost honestly is crazy, but management bull isnt bad. I went to Utah OTC this past september, i did a swap hunt, gator for an elk. Guy was a guide, etc. guaranteed me atleast an opportunity at a spike. Well after everything he changed the dates and it was after spike season, then cut the trip short 3 days. I had 4k invested after everything thinking i was going on a true elk hunt. Heck it took me everything just to take the days off. So there are certain times where this style hunt may suit someone. While i was out there, the guy i was with was guiding 2 others same time as me(again he failed to mention that) he took them to a 1k acre high fence place and they killed a cow and a smaller bull. We actually walked and kicked the bull up for them to shoot. NOW that is not for me! To each there own though. My wife has told me she will allow me one more chance to go somewhere to try and get it done. I have only 2 points for wyoming, and everything else is OTC. I do not have that much time to take off, so i am trying to plan the perfect elk hunt. I only care to kill a legal bull and does not need to be big! Every day i am planning and praying maybe i get drawn for new mexico or something. I may only have 3-4 days to hunt though but we will see.
Click to expand...
If your wife only lets you go on two 3-4 day elk hunts in a lifetime, shoot a penned bull if that makes you happy. However your family/work situation doesn't make shooting a high fence bull any different. There are reputable outfitters that would offer very high odds of success on wild bulls but they are probably going to start closer to $8k and would probably tell you dedicating only 3-4 days is going to lower your odds.
 
High fence = IMO is Killing versus Open Range Fair Chase Hunting.

No animal should be allowed in any record book since again IMO does not meet Fair Chase criteria.
 
HUNT4JESUS said:
Well I am "On the Fence" here, 10k acres is a ton of land and there are a bunch of elk i think that are born there. I was looking into going there, for the same thing. My wife is paying for me an elk hunt as a birthday gift. I have looked all over at outfitters and some private land areas. My line of work i only get a few days a year i can actually take, and my vacation falls outside of elk season! So it makes it super tough to go anywhere on a backcountry hunt for 7 days etc. I have to fly and all that, so it makes sense to go somewhere that offers a better margin. Once in a lifetime hunt, someone may want to go there. Now the cost honestly is crazy, but management bull isnt bad. I went to Utah OTC this past september, i did a swap hunt, gator for an elk. Guy was a guide, etc. guaranteed me atleast an opportunity at a spike. Well after everything he changed the dates and it was after spike season, then cut the trip short 3 days. I had 4k invested after everything thinking i was going on a true elk hunt. Heck it took me everything just to take the days off. So there are certain times where this style hunt may suit someone. While i was out there, the guy i was with was guiding 2 others same time as me(again he failed to mention that) he took them to a 1k acre high fence place and they killed a cow and a smaller bull. We actually walked and kicked the bull up for them to shoot. NOW that is not for me! To each there own though. My wife has told me she will allow me one more chance to go somewhere to try and get it done. I have only 2 points for wyoming, and everything else is OTC. I do not have that much time to take off, so i am trying to plan the perfect elk hunt. I only care to kill a legal bull and does not need to be big! Every day i am planning and praying maybe i get drawn for new mexico or something. I may only have 3-4 days to hunt though but we will see.
Click to expand...
I don't think it's the acreage or where the elk are born that's the cause of heartburn for most of us, or at least for me. It's the fact that on piece of private land (especially that size) a land owner can create a sanctuary. He can create his own road network for access, hang cameras all over, make his own water holes, have his guides know the daily schedules and routines for each bull, and generally align everything in a way that makes the "hunt" easier and increases odds of success. Then, on top of that, throw in the fact that those elk are not pressured in that sanctuary and they will be...DUMB. Like choke a hoochie mama from 1200 yards away and the bulls come running in like puppy dogs dumb. Then when someone kills a trophy class bull(like Rogan or Dudley) on this huge private ranch and calls it a real hunt, it's kind of frustrating. Because that experience I just described, is generally not at all like reality when hunting public land, heavily pressured elk, that see recreational pressure their whole life and hunting pressure on an annual basis.

Those two thing are not the same. If that's what floats your boat, set sail brother. Just don't expect me to be impressed or think that the quasi-domestic elk deserves to be immortalized in a record book.

I should add that not every outfitter is like that. Some are seriously working their tail off for you, sometimes even on public land, hunting the same bulls everyone else. It's this thing where with some outfitters, it's closer to "picking your bull" than it is "hunting".
 
Last edited:
HUNT4JESUS said:
Well I am "On the Fence" here, 10k acres is a ton of land and there are a bunch of elk i think that are born there. I was looking into going there, for the same thing. My wife is paying for me an elk hunt as a birthday gift. I have looked all over at outfitters and some private land areas. My line of work i only get a few days a year i can actually take, and my vacation falls outside of elk season! So it makes it super tough to go anywhere on a backcountry hunt for 7 days etc. I have to fly and all that, so it makes sense to go somewhere that offers a better margin. Once in a lifetime hunt, someone may want to go there. Now the cost honestly is crazy, but management bull isnt bad. I went to Utah OTC this past september, i did a swap hunt, gator for an elk. Guy was a guide, etc. guaranteed me atleast an opportunity at a spike. Well after everything he changed the dates and it was after spike season, then cut the trip short 3 days. I had 4k invested after everything thinking i was going on a true elk hunt. Heck it took me everything just to take the days off. So there are certain times where this style hunt may suit someone. While i was out there, the guy i was with was guiding 2 others same time as me(again he failed to mention that) he took them to a 1k acre high fence place and they killed a cow and a smaller bull. We actually walked and kicked the bull up for them to shoot. NOW that is not for me! To each there own though. My wife has told me she will allow me one more chance to go somewhere to try and get it done. I have only 2 points for wyoming, and everything else is OTC. I do not have that much time to take off, so i am trying to plan the perfect elk hunt. I only care to kill a legal bull and does not need to be big! Every day i am planning and praying maybe i get drawn for new mexico or something. I may only have 3-4 days to hunt though but we will see.
Click to expand...
Welcome to HT.
 
I'm gonna be honest, I'd blast it given the chance. Not gonna pay 10k for a shot, but i'd blast it for sure.
 
brocksw said:
I don't think it's the acreage or where the elk are born that's the cause of heartburn for most of us, or at least for me. It's the fact that on piece of private land (especially that size) a land owner can create a sanctuary. He can create his own road network for access, hang cameras all over, make his own water holes, have his guides know the daily schedules and routines for each bull, and generally align everything in a way that makes the "hunt" easier and increases odds of success. Then, on top of that, throw in the fact that those elk are not pressured in that sanctuary and they will be...DUMB. Like choke a hoochie mama from 1200 yards away and the bulls come running in like puppy dogs dumb. Then when someone kills a trophy class bull(like Rogan or Dudley) on this huge private ranch and calls it a real hunt, it's kind of frustrating. Because that experience I just described, is generally not at all like reality when hunting public land, heavily pressured elk, that see recreational pressure their whole life and hunting pressure on an annual basis.

Those two thing are not the same. If that's what floats your boat, set sail brother. Just don't expect me to be impressed or think that the quasi-domestic elk deserves to be immortalized in a record book.

I should add that not every outfitter is like that. Some are seriously working their tail off for you, sometimes even on public land, hunting the same bulls everyone else. It's this thing where with some outfitters, it's closer to "picking your bull" than it is "hunting".
Click to expand...

I look at it a little different. I think it's awesome that places exist where animals can live naturally without constant human caused stress but do wish influencers would provide a more true portrayal of the hunt. We could have a discussion about posse hunting and where to draw the lines on technology but the two things that really turn me off are:
1. High fences preventing natural animal travel on and off of land
2. Breeding genetic freaks to be bought and sold and pretending they are the same as wild naturally occurring animals.

Ive had this discussion recently with people in the whitetail world who have massive high fence and low fence properties and have stated (believably so) that the deer in the high fence property are harder to hunt than the low fence property. In this case the high fence deer are not bought/bread/introduced, they are just naturally reproducing offspring of what was inside when the fence was made. I can see how being limited to where they can travel would result in them being wound a little tighter. So the ease of hunt part is subjective, but i just dont like the fence part controlling genetics and free travel of wildlife.
 
Addicting said:
I wondered about that too. With all the calcium and other nutrients it was injected with or consumed to get massive growth, I wondered what it does to the meat.

I can’t imagine that it would taste the same as a normal elk. Maybe that is a good thing for Meateater to discuss with the meat Scientists.
Click to expand...
Addicting said:
But are they really elk? It’s genetics could be altered significantly to promote that type of horn growth and we have to take the farmers word it was a elk. Where is the line?
Click to expand...
My guess would be that the mineral supplements and readily available feed are simply a very high quality food source that leaves the meat unharmed, but perhaps of a slightly higher quality simply due to enhanced overall health of the animal. If there was a difference in flavor it would likely be due primarily to increased fat content.

I’m sure they are elk genes. While it’s possible that genetic engineering of some sort is/has been researched for elk, I’d be completely blown away if someone is actually doing it on a “hunting” operation. I used to spend some get away weekends on a high fence game ranch that my best friend’s in-laws operated. Those deer were 100% deer genes, BUT when you buy breeders that had been selectively bred for generations, and then you selectively breed for generations(does that threw sub standard make off-spring were uthenized, good bucks were turned out to be “hunted” and incredible bucks were kept for breeding purposes, and every animal is tagged) then you get genetics that would never be found in the wild. There is no selection pressure for beating a draught, or migrating to the best food, or avoiding predators or disease. The only selection pressure was for the rack. So while those deer, and possibly the elk in the article, are not GMO animals, they are still not what you’d ever find in the wild.
 
brocksw said:
I don't think it's the acreage or where the elk are born that's the cause of heartburn for most of us, or at least for me. It's the fact that on piece of private land (especially that size) a land owner can create a sanctuary. He can create his own road network for access, hang cameras all over, make his own water holes, have his guides know the daily schedules and routines for each bull, and generally align everything in a way that makes the "hunt" easier and increases odds of success. Then, on top of that, throw in the fact that those elk are not pressured in that sanctuary and they will be...DUMB. Like choke a hoochie mama from 1200 yards away and the bulls come running in like puppy dogs dumb. Then when someone kills a trophy class bull(like Rogan or Dudley) on this huge private ranch and calls it a real hunt, it's kind of frustrating. Because that experience I just described, is generally not at all like reality when hunting public land, heavily pressured elk, that see recreational pressure their whole life and hunting pressure on an annual basis.

Those two thing are not the same. If that's what floats your boat, set sail brother. Just don't expect me to be impressed or think that the quasi-domestic elk deserves to be immortalized in a record book.

I should add that not every outfitter is like that. Some are seriously working their tail off for you, sometimes even on public land, hunting the same bulls everyone else. It's this thing where with some outfitters, it's closer to "picking your bull" than it is "hunting".
Click to expand...
Well and not to mention the whole hole wink wink legality of the whole thing... so it's illegal to go catch some wild elk for your zoo...yet here were are?

And then there is to @Hunting Wife point crossbreeding your "elk" with non-native red deer.

and then the while bit about them escaping...
 
I worked for an outfitter years and years ago that sold hunts at a preserve in another state on top of his outfitting for actual hunting. I never missed a chance to express my opinion on it. I got fed the same line of BS about how big the place was, it’s actually like hunting blah blah blah.

They sold a ton of hunts up there, and were short some help and he begged me to fill in for a day. I was in pretty bad shape financially and finally caved, for one day only. And I told him I’m not gonna pretend this is like hunting, this is killing livestock. He wasn’t in a position to tell me otherwise.

Guess what, it took me all of 20 minutes to find and have this guys trophy wife kill the target bull on a 5000 acre property I’d never seen let alone stepped foot on. I’ll never forget, she was named after a makeup company. Nice lady, but still, you can’t make this stuff up. Easiest 600 dollars I’ve ever made. We had meat hanging and the non edible parts of the carcass at the pit within probably two and a half to three hours of me driving through the gate.

I could’ve worked that place for months and months and made a boat load of money with way less work than actual guiding, but it’s just so pathetic to me to see these people pretend like they’re hunting. Looking back, I’m pretty disappointed with myself I caved and worked that BS, but on the other hand I can call BS immediately, with experience to back it up when someone tries to claim, “oh the place is so big it’s like hunting.”

No, it’s not. Stop trying to convince yourself otherwise.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Thegreatwapiti
TheGreatWapiti 2023 Colorado Archery Hunt
2
Replies
21
Views
2K
c-hart90
C
jeremy.b
Family man's 2023 hunt log/recap
2
Replies
28
Views
2K
jeremy.b
jeremy.b
W
sold
Replies
1
Views
310
WesternCO68
W
T
'23 Wyoming Elk
Replies
12
Views
1K
MT_elk
MT_elk
B
Colorado Help
2
Replies
26
Views
4K
NERedlegz
N
Gastro Gnome - Eat Better Wherever

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
111,218
Messages
1,951,418
Members
35,081
Latest member
Brutus56

Share this page

Back
Top