Montana vs Idaho

[TimeOnTarget]

I chose ID simply cause they treat us Veterans like residents, or better. Came home empty handed though...

 

[Southern Elk]

I don't think you could go wrong either way. My biggest concern is always how much hunting pressure there is. You can find elk in either state. Find you a spot without a lot of pressure and you've got something special. I'm still looking for that spot by the way...

 

[belly-deep]

Possibly a better chance?

Looking solely at number of B&C entries by state is absolutely worthless. There are tons of access and tag availability issues that rearrange that list pretty quick for the DIY public land hunter.

But by your logic, Utah is the place he should go.

 

[jryoung]

Looking solely at number of B&C entries by state is absolutely worthless. There are tons of access and tag availability issues that rearrange that list pretty quick for the DIY public land hunter.

But by your logic, Utah is the place he should go.

I was neither looking at the issue solely or applying any singular logic, I was merely adding a data point in addition to the other points of discussion in this thread (some of those points also made by myself). But, thanks for your assumption.

 

[Irrelevant]

The one nice thing that Idaho has going for it is you can archery hunt OTC in the controlled rifle zones, which would lead to older aged bulls. And some of these units have bull:cow ratios over 40% and success rates over 20%. So essentially, you can hunt a trophy unit every year as a non-resident for $300 less and really get to know it, which is IMO the biggest success factor. And you could always put in for the controlled hunt in that unit and be prepared for when you draw that tag. MT does have some great opportunities, but remember a lot of those B&C bulls are coming off private land (Bearpaws, Bull Mts, Rosebud County are all private), if you really dive into it. I've heard that 70% of the elk in MT are on private, so take that into consideration.

This is definitely more of the rational I had coming into this discussion. Not sure about the 70% on private land, but from my limited experience it seems like there's a lot of the public land in MT that has very few elk on it. But I've also spent most of my backcounty time in areas not overly known for elk (Swan Valley).

Based off the comments people have made so far, there's clearly some very good areas in MT, otherwise people wouldn't support it. And the B&C entries definitely show the potential, though I would guess those are coming from limited entry to private land.

As a side note, from what I've seen I put WY above both, but I can't draw the tags every year.

 

[ida homer]

If this tells you anything, the 2 elk hunts (with easily obtainable tags) that I want to do soon are general archery in Montana and Wyoming. I think you can draw the general tag with little or no points sometimes, if you pay the special fee.

I love ID and think we trump MT in some areas, but the quality of those 2 tags from the research I've done and what my buddy's have said is that they are very good, especially for generals.