Just spent a week elk hunting with my new Marsupial fully enclosed binoharness and range finder pouch. Retired my original marsupial harness. Very happy with the new one and would highly recommend it.
All great advise from others. I would just encourage you to look for a good tripod that is lightweight (SLIK 624 for example) and a bino adapter that works with the tripod head. The outdoorsman bino stud and adapter works great but now others have entered the game and might be less expensive.
I have been very happy with my 6.5 PRC. I have about 70 rounds through it and the bolt is getting smoother. It is not picky, I have tried 5 different bullets and a few powder combinations and it groups well each time.
I have tried several different powders over the years but find it difficult to top the results from H4350. Unfortunately, H4350 is one of those unicorn powders that is difficult to find.
Thank you for the clarification, it is definitely not a contract. I am glad to see that you would be completely silent and okay with doing away with points even though you were one year away from a unit 201 tag. I am striving to be a better man.
I believe almost every state would like to find a way out of Preference Point Purgatory and move to a system similar to Idaho. What makes this virtually impossible is the folks, like me, who have accumulated preference points and will not support a system without points.
My idea to transition to...
Many of you have chimed in about killing your elk in the blue area but not many have weighed in on the elk they lost. I am zero for One on the blue shot and that was 20 years ago. Consequently, I have never taken that shot again even though I have had similar opportunities.
To me it is weather dependent. During archery season you have to be very careful with time and temperature to prevent meat spoiling. If the weather is cool and try, get the bull down and then figure it out.