Go for a rocky mountain elk hunt. Some good shopping and you could stay within your budget. Alaska will add up in travel expenses quickly. Watch for the states with the drawings for a hunting license. Montana has a outfitters tag you can buy instead of the drawing but it is spendy. I'm sure you will get a recommendation or two from this post.
Good luck to the both of you.

~Jeff~

Thanks for the reply, Jeff. Will let you know what we end up doing!

Colorado elk hunting is awsome. The are many outfitter services here and a lot of big elk! It is one of the best hunts your husband will ever have. Let me know if you need more info. Good luck.This is one of mine own trophys without a outfitter.

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My advice would be to contact a reputable booking agent. I personally use Atcheson & son's outfitters in Butte Montana. they take the time to find out what you are actually looking for and try to match you up with a good outfitter that meets your needs. Although $3-4000 is a little light for a quality elk hunt. I think they could find you a good bear hunt very reasonably priced. Good elk hunts in quality areas with quality outfitters seem to start in the $5000 range and go up.

HuntingWidow:

In making your plans you might take into consideration your husband's physical condition or readiness to train to get into excellent physical condition. Some elk hunts are physically very demanding. If this was an issue, you might be well advised to lean towards an elk hunt on a private ranch instead of a hunt where the outfitter takes hunters up into high mountain country using horses. Others can provide further information on this, I just wanted to add this consideration to your planning activity. Do discuss your husband's physical conditioning and/or his readiness to undertake physical training as preparation for whatever hunt you are considering.

A great gift idea for your husband. Whatever hunt you select, I'm sure he'll love it! Very thoughtful.

HuntingWidow:

The elk hunt is a good idea, but if this starts to exceed your budget of less than $3000, you might consider a pronghorn antelope hunt in Wyoming. This could certainly be done in this price range. Physical conditioning is not nearly as important as it is for Elk hunting. The time required to do a hunt is liable to be less -- maybe three days for Pronghorn Antelope versus seven days for Elk. The success ratio is VERY high for Pronghorn, in the neighborhood of 90%, whereas the success ratio for Elk is more like 25% or less.

A mule deer hunt -- in Montana, Wyoming, or Colorado -- would be a second alternative, less pricey than an Elk hunt but probably more expensive than a Pronghorn Antelope hunt. The probability of success if probably between the 25% success ratio for Elk and the 90% success ratio for Pronghorn Antelope. Note that bagging an animal is not essential to having an enjoyable, satisfying hunt, just another parameter worth being apprized of. The physical difficulty of Mule deer hunting is probably closer to that of Pronghorn Antelope hunting than that of Elk hunting.

Just other alternatives to consider.

Success rates for guided elk hunts are quite a bit higher than 25%. 25% or less generally applies to Joe Hunter doing a basic do-it-yourself hunt during a general hunt. But I guarantee guided hunts have a lot higher success than that. Especially if you have horses, private land, or a limited number of tags handed out for an area. That's not even taking into account all the scouting that an outfitter and his guides do during the summer.

Good points. I was parroting what I read in a book about Elk hunting, I think. Perhaps others can comment on the success rates of guided/outfitted hunts on public lands, for example a pack-hunt, and on private lands, such as a private ranch.

Here is a link to some interesting comments about Elk hunting success ratios:

https://www.biggamehunt.net/sections/Off_Season/The_Truth_About_Outfitter...

I'm guessing you'll need to reconstitute the URL in your web browser address window as one continuous text string.