What A Year For Elk

[Flatbrimmer]

 

[The Hedgehog]

@FoodIsMemories sorry for laughing about your brothers first cow elk. He looks truly happy - congratulations.

 

[mdhunter]

Jesus, can I have the time back I invested reading this thread?

 

[antlerradar]

I guess if you don’t know what good hunting is, was, could be, then stick to the norris road for your hunting satisfaction.

It is sad what hunting's new normal has become in Montana.

 

[Ben Lamb]

Nice work @shrapnel. Looks like a fun season!

 

[DouglasR]

Likewise. But I'll keep commenting, asking legit questions, any time I feel like it. My question above was about local MT elk hunting, assuming you are familiar with changes over the last few decades. If you are plumb happy with complete dogshit hunting on the National Forest, so long as there's a swarm on a rancher's place, that's okay too. But I am genuinely curious.

Good hunters will adapt, overcome and find the elk where the elk are.
If the elk are evolving, the hunters must follow suit.
Sorry you won’t be able to drink a bunch of beer while afield anymore for risk of getting a dui.
#stayinit

 

[Brad]

It is sad what hunting's new normal has become in Montana.

Those kind of "hunts" have been a feature of the Montana landscape for a long time. It's what passes for a "drive by shooting" in Montana. Quite a while ago I lived on a ranch in the Madison Valley and got to watch what passes for hunting by road hunters. I get wanting meat, but the amount of wounded and stressed elk got depressing to see. Not anything I'm interested in, but teach each his own I suppose.

 

[BirdManMike]

Shrap has about 20,000 posts on 24hourcampfire. Enjoy!

The dopamine of the like button being clicked on one of your posts is a powerful drug.

 

[DouglasR]

Weren’t elk originally plains animals?
And then @Greenhorn ’s cowboy ass family drove them up into the mountains?
Very unnatural.
Why would you want to hunt elk in an unnatural setting?
Because it makes you feel good?

 

[DouglasR]

it might be what matters most to you. Living here - you might prefer better elk hunting in spite of reading how just totally great it is with a flurry of the photos above.

Another elk hunt along Norris road last week. Successful for many, even on the little piece of state land. God bless Montana..

Didn’t you shoot a buck from the truck 1 or 2 years ago?

 

[BuzzH]

Weren’t elk originally plains animals?
And then @Greenhorn ’s cowboy ass family drove them up into the mountains?
Very unnatural.
Why would you want to hunt elk in an unnatural setting?
Because it makes you feel good?

What a joke...more BS in that post than a stockyard.

It's no wonder elk hunting in Montana has become a drive by affair.

Would really like to discuss the history of elk habitat in Montana but have a buck whitetail to hunt in the mountains of NW Montana that were pushed out of their preferred habitat by cowboys.

It's so unnatural not hunting whitetails in their traditional habitat, you know corn, soybean, alfalfa fields or a planted food plot.

Guess I should just adapt to the new normal...where's that bag of comeerdeer?

 

[The Hedgehog]

There’s some thin skin about road hunting and dink shooting comments. Them’s fightin words..

 

[Straight Arrow]

Colorado being a state seventy percent the size of Montana and including public land comprising only about seventy-five percent of that held by Montana, yet Colorado can sustain an elk population more than twice that of Montana … even before the proposed elk population reduction by shoulder seasons! Obviously Colorado elk “tolerance” is that much greater than that of Montana. Montana has potential to sustain more elk … not fewer!

Even though I recognize the ill-conceived mandate of FWP to meet elk population objectives, FWP needs to come up with creative plans to redistribute elk over the viable habitat in order to mitigate adverse impacts of “too many elk”, rather than continue a program to drastically extend hunting pressure and reduce elk herds across Montana to future levels which potentially could put them ‘back to the brink” … at least in certain areas and with respect to tourism and hunting opportunity.

 

[DouglasR]

There’s some thin skin about road hunting and dink shooting comments. Them’s fightin words..

View attachment 250358

Somebody’s letting their Lakota mouth outrun their Custer ass.

 

[Brad]

Colorado being a state seventy percent the size of Montana and including public land comprising only about seventy-five percent of that held by Montana, yet Colorado can sustain an elk population more than twice that of Montana … even before the proposed elk population reduction by shoulder seasons! Obviously Colorado elk “tolerance” is that much greater than that of Montana. Montana has potential to sustain more elk … not fewer!

Even though I recognize the ill-conceived mandate of FWP to meet elk population objectives, FWP needs to come up with creative plans to redistribute elk over the viable habitat in order to mitigate adverse impacts of “too many elk”, rather than continue a program to drastically extend hunting pressure and reduce elk herds across Montana to future levels which potentially could put them ‘back to the brink” … at least in certain areas and with respect to tourism and hunting opportunity.

Colorado has 24.5 million acres of wooded area. Montana has 14.6 million acres of wooded area. That's not to say our FWP manages our elk population well - it doesn't. It's just to point out the equivalency between Colorado and Montana far less than one might assume.

 

[Gerald Martin]

Colorado has 24.5 million acres of wooded area. Montana has 14.6 million acres of wooded area. That's not to say our FWP manages our elk population well - it doesn't. It's just to point out the equivalency between Colorado and Montana far less than one might assume.

Elk only live in the woods…? Is that why ranchers and ag producers complain about elk eating their grass and crops?


Elk habitat is elk habitat regardless of whether it’s wooded or not. Montana just happens to have enough elk habitat where crops are raised in proximity or cattle are grazed where elk live to ensure that social tolerance for elk limits their ability to increase populations to anywhere close to biological carrying capacity.

 

[Straight Arrow]

Colorado has 24.5 million acres of wooded area. Montana has 14.6 million acres of wooded area.

Not a valid excuse.

Please claify: Are the Breaks considered part of the Montana "wooded area"?

 

[Big Fin]

Well, this thread has long outlived its usefulness. If this is what the tenor is like in hunting season, I can't imagine what it will be like in the off-season.

If you have an opinion that is counter to what someone else states in a thread about their hunt(s), start a different thread to discuss that topic. When folks post their hunting stories and pictures, let it be. When it comes to hunting stories, it's their thread, their story, don't derail it with your opinions; start a different thread if you feel something is a useful topic and we can have debates and opinions expressed on those threads. Hunting story threads need to stay as hunting stories.

 

[Deleted member 52098]

just got back from a CO public land hunt and it turns out there were more shots fired on this thread than in the woods of a huge unit

 

[Straight Arrow]

This turned sour fast. Still it has been a good fall for hunting elk. More family and friends with elk, and for all the critics, they are on public land, miles away from any private ground…



View attachment 250242View attachment 250243

Congratulations on a fun and productive elk season family and friends affair.
PM me if you need to borrow my big-a$$ heavy duty Cabela's meat grinder!