Myself and a friend are looking, would be none resident, looking at either Utah or Montana. Anyone have any outfitter recommendations for a rifle hunt?

Elk tags and private land is a great deal.

Provided that you can actually get a tag for the unit the hunt is in. And the outfitter is selling you something worth buying.

If you are purchasing land owner validations from an outfitter then it will have to be from New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, or California.

If you are trying to draw a tag to hunt private property then it becomes more complicated and while there are otc elk tags available in some of the better private land units, that is not always the case.

It really depends on how unlimited your budget is.

My top 3 would be Ted Turner's Vermejo Park Ranch in New Mexico (near Taos), the Mescalero Apache Inn of the Mountain Gods in New Mexico (near Ruidoso), or one of Ted Turner's ranches in Montana. These are all about $15,000. And are elk shopping in the wild.

If you had $25,000 to spend I'd talk to Tejon Ranch in California. Also free range elk shopping.

You could easily spend $7500 and get nothing for your money. $10,000 is an ok amount but that other $3500-5000 seems to lock in a good hunt.

I don't know these guys, or have any affiliation. They are $8000ish and claim to be 90% on 300 inch bulls.


I am guessing you don't live in elk country, that is kind of like a 130-140 whitetail.

https://www.wheatoncreekranch....ting/rates-packages/

I was just thinking about this, there are public land draw hunts in Wyoming in wilderness areas that would give you higher odds of killing a big bull, and be around the $8000 mark.

Unit 60 would not require more than 2-3 points.

Wyoming area 60 is a Wilderness hunt and way different than private ranch hunts. 25 to 30 mile pack in hunt on horses in rough country compared to truck or atv's for the ranch hunt. Plus lots of bears in 60. The Wilderness hunts are the true way to hunt elk, but take a lot more work and effort from the hunter. Kind of depends on age and ability.

Just saying the Buffalo Throrofare is an option, and there is no greater wilderness in America.

I'd rather hunt elk in 60, than buy a similarly priced private ranch hunt. I think it will be a hell of a lot better experience.

Most of the low end private ranch hunts kind of suck.

Really appreciate the reply’s, unfortunately no, not in elk country, that’s the problem, not even in the country so coming from Europe and a long way to come and a heap of money to spend on something as a one off so just trying to make sure I avoid any obvious problems.

It does seem to be a case of $12,000 plus is where your at on private land for a decent successful hunt.

Other option is Maral in Asia, was just very keen on hunting North America and the cape colours on an Elk.

$12,000 is probably a pretty good place to be.

Maral will end up being the same price, and a true wilderness hunt like Unit 60 in Wyoming.

Unit 60 will be cheaper, success on both hunts will neither be assured or implied but should be 50-80%.

We have some big game ranches that have elk on them in Idaho, Saskatchewan, Quebec, Colorado and New Mexico.

The Jicarilla Indian reservation has one, and it is one of the biggest high fenced operations in the world. I think they get about $8500 for trophy bull. It is something on the order of 80,000 acres. I have never talked to them, but you have to pay for an outfitter on top of that. I don't think it is more than $2000-3000.

The best part of maral is that you can hunt ibex, Asiatic roe deer, wolves, wildboar and brown bears and often capercaillie on the same hunt.

There are good elk in areas that are not typical. Note that elk were originally a plains animal.
If you are learning about places to hunt on this forum that location will likely be expensive or in high demand (Draw).
It takes a lot of homework especially for a person off shore to find a reasonable opportunity but they exist.
I just took very fine bull at a very reasonable price but it took a lot of research and homework.
You have to open your mind and look in areas close to where elk exist but not their mainstay
If it were easy anyone could do it.

One very important component to ensure if you are hunting on private land is to respect that property. Keep low profile, do not litter the land and a BIG deal is not to rut up the property roads.
Take care of the land and be as quite as possible.
Best if the property owner does not know you are there. Be that quite.
If you are loud, obnoxious, trashy, and not take care of the property the owner kill the opportunity for you and others to use his land.
Good luck.

quote:

Originally posted by rowan458:
Really appreciate the reply’s, unfortunately no, not in elk country, that’s the problem, not even in the country so coming from Europe and a long way to come and a heap of money to spend on something as a one off so just trying to make sure I avoid any obvious problems.

It does seem to be a case of $12,000 plus is where your at on private land for a decent successful hunt.

Other option is Maral in Asia, was just very keen on hunting North America and the cape colours on an Elk.

Rowan458,
I am not an outfitter or such, but I do live in Texas and know that elk can be hunted year around here as they are not native and therefore exotics.
You could do some searches for trophy elk hunts and see how many exotic ranches there are that offer elk hunts. I quit chasing antlers years
back after I hung a 330 point bull rack outdoors over my courtyard because of no more indoor space. Now I shoot mostly cow elk, Nilgai, Axis, and red deer cows for meat. The ranch where I shot this cow had some YUGE bulls that we could have taken, but the cow cost only $600.00 so we skipped the bulls.


Good luck with your hunt. PS 190 yards with .308 165 grain bullet.