Changing focus

[Caseknife]

Kind of amazing to me when I am on a cow elk hunt and other hunters ignore bulls that are bugling. Very good possibility that he has cows with him......

 

[madtinker]

As always...more reps and more encounters will always be beneficial.

BUT...don't go into a cow hunt thinking it's easier. IMO, for archery at least, cows much harder to hunt than bulls.

For now I am rifle hunting. But the point is well taken. Nothing about this is easy.

 

[Jethro]

Took me 5 hunts(4/5 were archery) to kill first elk. I never once considered taking a cow before the last 2 days of each of those hunts. I’m no trophy hunter and if you saw the 3 elk racks I have, you’d agree. But my goal was to shoot at least a branch antlered bull. Last year shot cow on day 11 of 12.

Even in those early years filled with tag soup, there was no shortage of learning.

 

[JRay]

If bringing home meat is a large part of the equation, then find the tag that’s most conducive to that element of your goals and get a bunch of kills under your belt. There are ways to have good hunts annually and build points for a good bull tag in the future.

 

[robby denning]

Do it! One of my regrets when i was young was not getting more shooting experience (especially with a bow) on live animals. I jumped right into big buck hunting and while I'm glad, my shooting sucked because I hadn't really had the live practice.

you can always come back to bulls.

 

[WanderingWapiti]

Reading this is a healthy reminder that killing an elk is never a guarantee. Heck, I only just killed my first elk (cow) this year. Of course my ego's got me wanting to try and kill a bull next year, but still being new to big game hunting and archery, I better chill out and take the first legal elk I can. I might not even get an opportunity to shoot anything!

 

[BlacktailTracker]

I

From my personal experience, I think you get your greatest enjoyment from Elk hunting by embracing the experience and not focusing on "Trophy quality". I have been on outfitted hunts for 33 years. Mostly great experiences, some not so great. For me, my least enjoyable hunts were in 2 trophy tag units. One in NM and the other in WY. I enjoy the meat, being in the outdoors and chasing those tough bastards so much that when the focus shifted to expecting to shoot a 350 bull vs. just enjoying the hunt it wasn't as fulfilling. When you walk up on a dead bull and are focused on the score vs. the success of getting a Bull it left me with a feeling I didn't like.

Don't get me wrong the thrill of seeing a big bull and successfully harvesting him is great. I personally have
moved on from chasing the trophy tag. I have been fortunate to be successful on most of my Elk hunts and
the chase and harvest of any legal bull is exciting to me.

I kind of think about it like the hunt is the trophy and the antlers are just a keepsake. Hunting is about the hunt to me.

 

[madtinker]

I

I kind of think about it like the hunt is the trophy and the antlers are just a keepsake. Hunting is about the hunt to me.

With social media being what it is, I do feel incredible pressure to take “big” bucks. But I am much happier when I focus on the hunt and enjoying time outdoors with good friends.

 

[wyosam]

I’ve killed 10 or 12 branch antlered bulls over the year and about 3 times that in cows. My nicest bull wasn’t particularly big, and is the only set of antlers I’ve kept. Most of my best hunts have been for cows. Fooling that many eyes, ears and noses is a lot of fun, plus I enjoy the late season hunts more.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[chindits]

I’ll try full contrarian here and steer you in a different direction. Of course you don’t want to hear this at this stage in your life, but maybe after you have filled a few tags reconsider this.

Continue hunting for bulls but consider yourself a recreational hunter and not a trophy hunter and not a meat hunter

You don’t fill your tag, so what and enjoy the hunt. You’re already doing something a lot of people will never experience. In ten years the hunting landscape and tag availability might change significantly, who knows.

If you want to pretend you need the meat and don’t want to work a second job or help out on a ranch, call dispatch and get on the road kill list.

There were 3 dead cows on a 2 mile stretch of hwy last week and usually at least one side of those elk is still good if not 3/4s

Consider every cow you kill on a hunt you are usually killing two elk, that cow and next year’s calf.

Of course you could target this summer’s calves and know that a certain percentage of those calves won’t make it through winter anyway and they haven’t been bred. They are the unproven part of the herd. But you also might be killing next year’s spikes. Pick your poison but in the end just enjoy the hunt.

Now if you just enjoy killing like a lot of my so called meat hunter friends do…. You can switch species and hunt year round for the price of a small game tag and never have to endure a pack out. Funny how these guys never pass on a little dink even when they have plenty of meat in the freezer.

 

[madtinker]

@chindits I appreciate that perspective. I won’t pretend I need the meat. I have a good job and we could buy a half cow directly from a rancher every year if we wanted. I’m not sure I would hunt cows every year from now on; but a successful year on elk every once in a while would be nice, and the bull tags I can draw are extremely tough hunts. Add to that, the cow tags I am looking at are in places I could bring my kids along.

 

[BRTreedogs]

With social media being what it is, I do feel incredible pressure to take “big” bucks. But I am much happier when I focus on the hunt and enjoying time outdoors with good friends.

I’m certain you could delete all your social media in under 5 minutes.

 

[madtinker]

I’m certain you could delete all your social media in under 5 minutes.

But then I wouldn’t be on rokslide!

 

[BRTreedogs]

But then I wouldn’t be on rokslide!

Rokslide is not the end all be all.

 

[madtinker]

Rokslide is not the end all be all.

Heresy! Ready the tar and feathers!

 

[nphunter]

IMO if you are hunting to kill you are doing it for the wrong reasons, I love my time outdoors in the fall, watching the animals, interacting with nature and just the solitude of it. I feel bummed out once my tag is filled because I still have PTO to burn and no excuse to be in the woods. Most hunts I do besides elk I come home empty-handed because I'm after mature animals and would rather eat the tag than kill a young buck or doe. Make it about the hunt and the killing becomes much easier.

Most of my favorite hunts have been with my kids or my dad and most have been unsuccessful hunts, it is nice to be able to kill something but it is a tiny part of the equation at least for me.

Killing cows is a good way to fill the freezer but it teaches a person very little about hunting bulls. If your end goal is a freezer full of meat a rifle cow tag is the ticket. If your goal is to someday kill a mature bull then you should keep hunting bulls. If your end goal is to have a more enjoyable hunt then maybe shift you focus to that instead of killing something, take the kids and make memories in the woods, my boys have been hunting with me since before they could walk.

If your end goal is to impress people on social media, then shoot me a PM, I have a stack of bull euros I'll sell you along with a story on how I killed them, field pics and general areas, most have never been on social media so you should be able to rack up a lot of likes and followers.