Pete53, I hope you are more intelligent than your writing skill indicates. Please proofread before posting. A couple of points.With a couple of exceptions, elk numbers are way over projection. Two reasons why. There is a lot of private land that won't allow hunting. The problem is that many of their neighbors that do allow hunting, have to deal with the massive elk herds coming off those locked up properties when winter hits, and the elk head for their haystacks. Second, many of the elk have been living in the irrigated pivots for 5 or 6 generations now. Those elk have been born and raised in the near vicinity and won't leave willingly. There is plenty of grass for cattle and elk on public ground. The elk are not starving. Would you rather eat dry crappy grass in august, or set up camp in an irrigated pivot of alfalfa? There are no perfect solutions, and as long as we want private property rights in this country, we will have to deal with people who won't allow hunting even when they should. All sides will have to give a little. The overall sorry condition of the average elk Hunter here in Montana doesn't help much. More people that want to sit and gripe, than get out and walk and hunt. If you can't at least kill a cow elk here in Montana during a 5 week season, then you haven't hunted very hard.