Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting AZ elk ??

I'm now semi-retired and would like to do a DIY AZ hunt in 2020. Currently sitting on 7 points which is really no-mans land but I'm not getting any younger. I'm in good physical shape and can pack out my own elk. I'll be hunting solo which is what I normally do. Using Toprut it looks like late ML, late rifle or an antlerless hunt. I'm thinking late rifle or ML Unit 6A, but of course would like decent odds to kill an animal after the long drive. Am I missing something in these options?

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated, please us PM if anything remotely specific so the entire internet doesn't get your thoughts. Thanks in advance.

With those points you should be able to draw a late elk rifle.

Yep, what SU said. You would love it.

No archery?

You can't draw the best hunts because some of them are going to miss the bonus point pass but you can draw many units. 22N and 4B are usually the easiest to draw.

Good units for late hunts are 22, 23, 27, 8, some of the other units might be good but I don't ever hunt them so can't say. I would avoid 1, 2,3,4, 9 and 10 for late hunts without insider knowledge. 27 will require a lot of leg work as it is has poor access distribution. 8 will almost require hunting in the wilderness areas. Hope this helps.

For any chance at a decent bull during a late rifle hunt best chance is with the lower units. Top of the rim hunts will be raghorns often broken and spikes with mama. Big bulls will have dropped off after the rut. 8, 23, 27 are the best bets for a DIY but can be rough country and that's why there's bigger bulls. 22N you could pull a small bull out, lots of tags, big bulls are hard to find there but maybe.

You are a few years out yet for a tag that has a good chance at a decent 280 or bigger bull, either rifle or archery, though you always have a slight chance to draw every year.

Don't know what the draw odds are but I know guys that kill ok bulls in the 22S ML hunt in the foothills of the Matazal's.

Kent

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