West Texas Elk

20 September 2016, 21:09

mulie_mike

West Texas Elk

The rut is on and the bulls were bugling this weekend and both our clients were successful.
One big bull down and one management bull- doesn't get much better than that.

Congrats to my hunters and thank you for coming out.
These are free range elk in far west Texas.
www.westtexashunt.com

I offer primarily free range hunts and also preserve hunts on 1 million acres across west and southwest Texas for native and exotic game.

www.westtexashunt.com

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20 September 2016, 22:27

JTEX

Man! That trophy bull is nice. I gotta do that!

20 September 2016, 22:46

TREE 'EM

Nice bull Mike.
Congrats to your clients.
Were they rifle or bow?

20 September 2016, 23:29

mulie_mike

These were both rifle but we can do Archery

20 September 2016, 23:45

ZekeShikar

You should have changed your handle to "elkie_mike" for this thread!!! You've earned that title too. Fine elk hunting and thanks for sharing, Bro!

Zeke

23 September 2016, 10:32

Texas Blue Devil

Great Bull.

That is a hunt that I want to do.

24 September 2016, 17:57

Gracedog

I'm a little too beat up from a lifetime of labor to do a mountain hunt again, I'll have to give one of these hunts a try in the next few years. Nice bull!

25 September 2016, 04:43

mulie_mike

Thank you!

28 September 2016, 23:27

Atkinson

The mountain range behind Marathon, Texas. has had a lot of elk for many years, That land belonged to Cap Yates and Cap wanted elk at the time and planted them, they were his hobby, and the elk did well and his neighbor Bill Blakemore, a state rep let them alone until they had quite a number of elk and the elk started spreading to other ranches I suppose, but didn't make to our place dammit. Those ranches are not high fenced and they are large. They have always had lots of big elk and are not hunted to death..Those elk got started by Cap yates when I was a kid and that's a hell of long time back..I suppose other ranches by now have purchased elk and turned them out???..There are no fenced ranches in that part of Texas for deer or elk as far as I know, the ranches are simply too large to fence..How would you fence a 50 to a 100,000 ac. ranch at $3000 a mile!!and in that mountain country probably $10,000 a mile, even Trump couldn't afford that.

29 September 2016, 00:59

Crazyhorseconsulting

When Lora and I did the TP&W Draw hunt on the ranch between Sanderson and Marathon last year, we saw a lot of really good bull elk during our time on the ranch.

The main thing I noticed did not concern the length, but just the overall mass of the racks.

29 September 2016, 02:59

JGRaider

quote:
Originally posted by Atkinson:
The mountain range behind Marathon, Texas. has had a lot of elk for many years, That land belonged to Cap Yates and Cap wanted elk at the time and planted them, they were his hobby, and the elk did well and his neighbor Bill Blakemore, a state rep let them alone until they had quite a number of elk and the elk started spreading to other ranches I suppose, but didn't make to our place dammit. Those ranches are not high fenced and they are large. They have always had lots of big elk and are not hunted to death..Those elk got started by Cap yates when I was a kid and that's a hell of long time back..I suppose other ranches by now have purchased elk and turned them out???..There are no fenced ranches in that part of Texas for deer or elk as far as I know, the ranches are simply too large to fence..How would you fence a 50 to a 100,000 ac. ranch at $3000 a mile!!and in that mountain country probably $10,000 a mile, even Trump couldn't afford that.

Interesting. I thought elk were native to TX back in the Indian days....1800's and prior....... No?

29 September 2016, 03:23

Crazyhorseconsulting

Elk were native to Texas in the 1800's and earlier, but were present until around 1905.

However the subspecies that was native to Texas and northern Mexico was the Merriam Elk which became extinct in the first decade of the 20th. century.

From the limited number of specimens it has been speculated that the Merriam's were larger than either the Rocky Mountain or Roosevelt's subspecies.

The information I listed is from the book put out by the Wildlife Management Institute, titled Elk Of North America, Ecology and Management, copyright 1982.

07 October 2016, 21:19

Bob Nisbet

If you look at the Texas Parks & Wildlife hunting info,elk are not listed.
I take that to imply that all elk in Texas are privately owned and therefore no license is require to hunt them.
Am I correct?

09 October 2016, 08:08

Doubless

quote:
Originally posted by Bob Nisbet:
If you look at the Texas Parks & Wildlife hunting info,elk are not listed.
I take that to imply that all elk in Texas are privately owned and therefore no license is require to hunt them.
Am I correct?

Bob, I would take that to mean that there is not a population of elk in Texas large enough to sustain hunting for them. As such, I believe they are viewed as exotics, and there is no specific season for them.

FWIW, there are a few elk scattered about in the areas around Rock Springs, too. From what I am told, these are elk that managed to bust through fences. They have reverted to "feral", and are very much trying to make a comeback.

I would like to see it, even if, as has already been mentioned, these are Rocky Mountain elk and not the once indigenous Merriam.

15 October 2016, 21:31

Atkinson

Inasmuch as 99% of Texas is privately owned ranches of 5 to 100,000 plus acres depending on location, elk and various species of big game are not managed, much of the land other than the trans Pecos area is high fenced for the most part, hunting in State parks is managed by Texas. Much game over the years has escaped high fences and gone wild on neighboring ranches and they can be hunted on those ranches anytime..The Ranches around Sanderson, Marathon, Alpine, Marfa and presidio are huge and 99& low fenced, and have some exotic game that can be hunted year around plus Mule Deer, Coues Deer and Whitetail in season as all these species belong to Texas, Ranchers charge a trespass fee to hunt them on privately owned ranches.