A "once and a time elk hunt" and "Texas" don't belong in the same sentence.
Although I wouldn’t turn down a chance to go and try it out to see the country they live in.
West TX may not be the high mountain hunt many think of when thinking elk hunting, but they are killing some great free range bulls.
Agreed to both the above, but not at all what I'd consider the "hunt of a lifetime" for elk.
For sure. I bet it would be fun though, pretty neat to me they're there.
I travel from Texas to MT each fall now with a couple buddies to hunt elk. This all started 4 years ago on what was our lifetime group hunt. Now, like stated by others, each end to a hunt brings on the dreaming and planning for the next one.
We hunt DIY on public land. We are the idiots you see bumbling around halfway lost, but, we do manage to kill an elk each year and even got two this year. Being from Texas where everything is privately owned and fenced up, my appreciation for the scale of the landscape that is there for exploration is overwhelming. There is more to hunt than I could hunt, and this is hunting the same unit 4 years in a row. Each year we venture further, or explore different drainages. To kill any bull is icing on the cake. Packing them out on your back is a thrill itself that brings joy while simultaneously causing breathlessness and achy or wobbly muscles.
I see the picture from hunts in Texas, and I see a lot of short sleeves, blue jeans, massive shooting tripods, etc.. To me it seems more like the deer hunting that I am familiar with here at home.
Texas is missing the mark when it comes to managing their elk heard. I cannot think of any native animals that have been restored to their native range, and then treated like an exotic animal. I wish that would change. It sure would be nice to see healthy elk herds running freely through their native range in west Texas. If that could be accomplished, then I don’t see why Texas couldn’t be a destination elk hunt. A lot would have to change to get there, but until that happens, hunting elk in Texas is like hunting any other exotic animal in Texas as far as I’m concerned. Pay your access/guide fee, shoot your animal, pay your trophy fee and go home. A totally different experience than a DIY hunt on public land and one I have little interest in, regardless of the size of the antlers on the bulls in Texas.
