If you want elk meat for the freezer then I'd say it's no competition, Colorado is the place to go. If you're looking for a trophy for the wall then it gets to be a bit more complicated.

Some of the Indian reservation hunts in AZ and NM seem to offer the best trophy opportunities, but at HUGE expense! Montana, Colorado, and Idaho all have some real trophy bulls on public land, but you'll have to wait a long time to draw a tag and even then you're going to have to work damned hard to get one (and most hunters don't). So it's kind of a matter of how you want to go about it.

Well Don, I guess CO takes it 2 for 2.

I often wonder if the size of the bulls in an area (such as specific units in AZ, NM, CO) is not so much a product of genes or habitat but rather the local management.

Specifically, people like to say AZ and NM are the place to go, but I wonder if this is just because they are very restrictive. In other words CO could be "producing" the same massive bulls if they became just as restrictive. I'm not knocking on those states, just some thoughts.

Another factor is how carefully guarded the unit is against poachers. I remember reading something about the AZ unit where that huge archery bull came out of last year, that the game department officals were making daily trips through the unit to try and assure that nobody take a big bull illegally.

"In other words CO could be 'producing' the same massive bulls if they became just as restrictive."

I'm sure that's absolutely true. In fact, there are areas in Colorado where you can have a high probability on a trophy bull (Trinchera Ranch, in South-central Colorado is an example), but these are private-land hunts, where the elk are carefully managed, and the costs are out of this world!

Yeah regardless of the state you either: wait a long time for a public land hunt in a "known" trophy management area OR pay out the nose in a private managed area.

One of the nice things about CO's growing herd and underwhelming harvests is that each year more and more bulls are surviving to a later generation. I read somewhere that even two years ago the DOW was seeing more bigger bulls than they have in the past.

Let's bring this one back to life.

All those elk you guys have over in Colorado must walk over to
Washington to summer in my back yard. I can't count fast enough to keep track of them.

We get a good share of big ones, mostly good eatin size.

Spent some time in Colorado about 9 yrs. ago. Have a sister that lives down in Castle Rock. I hope to be able to make it over there again in the near future and give one of those monster a shot or two.

Fuzzy, you all have those Roosevelt elk too, which I would like to see some day. I hear they have bigger bodies and denser antlers, although they are not as branched as rocky mtn elk.

Those big bodied Roosevelts are impressive.

I'm about 20 miles from Mt. Rainier on the west side of the range. We've got one of the 3 largest herds in the state on this side and over on the easter slope is another one of the 3 largest herds in the state.

It's not unusual to see more elk than deer. There out in the pastures feeding with the cattle.

I live in Utah, and can say that their is some nice bulls in this state. but it all depends if you hunt on private or public land. And if it's a limited entry area or say an open bull area. where every body and their dog can go. So I don't really think you can say what is the best state. Maybe What state offers the best opportunity to hunt. For some of these trophy class animals for the average hunter. Without having to take a loan out to go hunting.