I've only been on here for a couple of months, so hopefully no one will judge me based on my post count. I have to get up for work in 4 hours, but this has got my goat.
This whole thread turns my stomach. When we start arguing the morality of whether someone with enough money should be guaranteed a bull, we should be posting in the "Elk Ranching" forum, not the "Elk Hunting" forum.
I've lived and hunted North Idaho for 30+ years. There are wolves here, but anyone who tells you they've "killed all the elk" is either misinformed or has an agenda. Idaho's elk harvests have been trending up for a number of years.

http://www.mtexpress.com/news/envir...f5e12f4-5901-11e6-b95a-7f214634620c.html

2015 was the best harvest since 1996? Huh.

What you are not going to get in Idaho is the ability to tell F&G or your guide what class of bull you want to shoot. I did, however, have an elk farm down the road from me which sold "hunts" from their 20 acre pen. They went out with a bang, too. The owner paid off his debt and shut down by allowing a blind "hunter" to shoot his herd bull, which he called by name over to the fence. He even held his rifle barrel to make sure he got a good kill shot. (Idaho counts domestic elk as livestock, you do not need a tag to shoot one.)The owner told me this story himself without shame. I see no difference between this and the outfit described by the OP.
(BTW - If you paid this outfitter tag fees or service fees for F&G, you might want to check to see if you even needed a tag for this hunt.)
Based on the OPs story, there is no way that kind of bull harvest is sustainable on 5000 acres without bringing in domesticated stock from somewhere. Fence or no fence, shooting domesticated elk is not hunting. That is simply indefensible. I've seen farm raised pheasant hunts in California so bad the guides had to throw the birds in the air to get them up.

As for a "New World Record Typical" - Is there any legitimate hunting organization in the world that accepts pen killed or domesticated elk kills in their record book?

Next - you cannot compare the North American hunting ethos with anywhere else on the planet to justify pen hunting. In the UK and Europe, the game was owned by the landowner, (aka royalty), they could mete out whatever fees or rules they desired. They could also punish as they saw fit anyone who killed game without permission. From it's discovery, our continent has allowed free men to take what they needed from the public lands with reasonable restrictions, usually self imposed. We do not, and should not, have a European or African system where you pay for what you take. Some of you might not be effected should the US Government decide to charge trophy fees. I personally would never be able go after a nice bull again.

Finally - When you cut through the "he said, then he said" and "Liar!, Liar!" on this thread, what you are left with is a judgement of the OP because he did not "do his homework". Or rather those who "did their homework" judging him for calling out the so called outfitter for running a game farm and calling it hunting. My heart hurts for the reported "little girl" who shot a trophy bull this way. She may never know what real hunting is. I am not naive. I have seen and been around some real slobs in my day. Idaho is chock full of those who zip up and down the roads in trucks and ATVs with total disregard for game laws or private property. I've always known they go home at the end of the day and tell the little woman what great hunters they are. Proof we all tell our wives the best part of the hunting tale and leave out the rest. When I grew up in California we drove Mulies and it was an accepted practice. But when we start quibbling over the size of the pen to define the morality of a hunt, it doesn't sound much different to an outsider as a discussion of what trimester it's ok to abort a baby.
Jose Ortega y Gasset wrote extensively about the hunter who judged himself and his ethos more than anyone around him. Particularly when he was alone in the field. We need to carefully examine the things we do and chose to defend.
This is why I prefer to hunt alone, I never disappoint anyone but myself.(and trust me, I have.) I sure as heck wouldn't hunt with most of the posters on this thread, even if they paid the bill.
I don't care how many posts they have.