About Elk

Thanks for all your comments and encouragement. This post will be a little less technical, maybe.
In the State of Utah, a hunter has to win a lottery of sorts to get a tag for a big game animal. Mule deer, Elk, Bighorn and Desert sheep, Moose, Bison, Antelope, Bear, Cougar, and Mountain Goat( the white ones with little black horns) are all big game animals in Utah. In order to keep animal populations high, there are a finite number of tags available each year. For Mule deer, you can hunt each year you "draw" a tag. Antelope and elk have a waiting period after you draw
a tag, 2 and 5 years respectively, with bear and cougar waiting periods being similar. For the others, Goat, Sheep, Moose, and Bison, you only get one tag in your life. The tags are further divided by areas, i.e. Rocky Mountain Goat, Lone Peak. These measures have brought almost all species to recorded history highs. There were never as many of most these species, even when the first Europeans came here. The primary reason the bison and wolf aren't as prevalent is loss of large tracts of habitat. Bison have been re-introduced and are doing well, and wolves have been moving down through Wyoming and Idaho. The last grizzly was reportedly shot in the Cache Valley around the turn of last century.

This brings us to my step-dad Kenny's elk tag. The area he put into the drawing for has very few tags for large amounts of potential hunters. There are three seasons, Any Weapon ( usually rifles are used), Archery, and Black Powder or Muzzle Loader. During archery and muzzleloader you may only use that type of weapon, and Any weapon is self explanitory. Kenny "drew out" for archery. Bows give a practicle range of 60 yards, muzzleloaders can shoot around 150 to 200 yards, and rifles might go to 300 yards. There are exceptions, but they require ideal situations and a lot of practice.

Registering for the hunt begins in January, and at that time you can sign up for Buck Deer or Bull Elk, and one of the Once-in-a-Lifetime hunts. Each time you are unsuccessful in drawing a hunt, you get one point for that specific hunt, i.e I now have 7 points for Rocky Mountain Goat and 6 Bull Elk points. These points give you more chances in the drawing and you retain them until you finally draw. I have known hunters who have put in for elk in the area Kenny got for 13 years with no luck. On the other hand I've heard of people getting it their first time, but most who draw have 8-10 points. Now add a 5 year waiting period before you can apply again, and another 8-10 points/years, it's pretty close to a once-in-a-lifetime itself. Kenny received his letter from the state notifying him which tag he drew in April. He did it with 5 or 6 points.

Now we had an area to start looking for or "scouting" for a big bull.

I guess people want as big a bull as they can find for a lot of reasons. I think those reasons are not completely seperated from each other, bragging rights, love for the animal, facination over the hunt, selfishness, and even for the most pounds of meat per tag. They're not all good, but they aren't all bad either.

These are the reasons I look for the biggest bull:

Rarity- there just aren't that many bull elk that survive to reach 7-8 years old and arguably their genetic prime. Hard winters, cars, sickness, injury during breeding- hierarchy fights, and loss of habitat, not to mention other hunters mean there just aren't around. So when I scout I am challenging myself to find that 1 in a 1000 bull. This leads to my next reason

Intelligence- these are the bulls who kept themselves healthy, knew how to fight, and how to elude hunters by spending their time in the roughest, steepest, dark timbered mountain side you can find. These aren't beef cows, standing in a field waiting to be harvested. They have vision which can detect movement 8 times better than human eyesight, and their hearing and sense of smell are even better. Because of their prowess, these are the bulls who do all the breeding

Difficulty- the big bulls have the herd. All the cows (females) are kept and bred by this bull. There can be anywhere from 8 - 80 or more cows in the herd including last years calves. these herds can cover mountain sides or fill valleys. That is a lot of eyes, ears, and noses you have to beat, quite a gauntlet. But if you can get within that 60 yard bow range, you could see a bull like this.

This is from a scouting trip I took in early spring, just to see what is out there. In order to get close to the bull or to lure him away from his herd, we use elk calls. Elk are vocal animals, they keep track of each other, call their calves, call their suitors, announce their dominance, or challenge that dominance.

These calls are just afew of the many makes and models of calls. The two on the left make cow sounds, the one on the right can imitate bull sounds.

This is a better view of the bull call. Because many hunters and photographers use calls, the animals don't just come running because they hear them. Because many elk have been educated, meaning they hear a challenge and come running up only to find a little, stinky, hairless thing, many know all that glitters usually is followed by a bang or a fffftt whizzing past them. I've even hunted in areas where calls have been used so much, the elk are almost totally silent. Any call you hear is some guy from Sandy or Provo or Conneticut trying to sound like the biggest bull ever, while the real bulls are rounding up their herds and heading for deep timber. I've started practicing, when to blow, when not to, how much and watching videos of successful hunters.

I'll leave with the image that hooked me on finding elk. The sun had been down for a bit but there was still some light on the fluttering aspen leaves. Across the canyon in some thick fir and spruce patches, I heard the most unearthly noise. Amix between arusty hinge, a sea lion, and a soprano saxaphone, it started mid-range then slid to a high clear note then back down to a rusty chuckeling bark. Then one similar, but unique in tone and duration, on my side, then up the valley one more. It made my hair stand on end.