Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Land owner Elk

Which western states allow you to harvest Elk on your own property without having to draw for a tag?

none to my knowledge, but I could be wrong.

too much money to be made off selling those tags.

if it's a high fence operation, and you OWN the herd, that may be a different set of regulations, but I'm happily unfamiliar with those terms too.

The west is a different animal to me. Trying to figure out land owner vouchers and over the counter tags and all that goes along with them.

If the animals are public, as in not privately owned stock animals, they are public property, and require proper licenses and tags to kill, including killing them on private property. This is true in Idaho, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado, to the best of my personal knowledge. I know of no exceptions.

I have no idea how it all works now, but back when I was living in Colo. I used to tag along with my buddies who all had "rancher tags" for a certain ranch. They were issued to the land owner by the DOW. Ranchers doled them out as they saw fit and different ranches had a different number of tags. The last time I was on one was February at the Dave Cook Ranch in Grand County. We waited for the elk to come down a trail to feed on hay and we shot one, 300 yds. It was too easy, but necessary, and we appreciated the meat!

I did not mean you did not have to have a license or a tag to hunt. I was just wondering if you have X number of acres if you would be granted X number of tags or if you had rely on drawing a tag

Idaho has a special drawing for landowners who own at least a section of land in units that have draw hunts. I don't have the land so I've never read up on the details of how it works.

New Mexico has a way to hunt elk on your own private land without going through the draw, but it’s not as simple as “you own x amount of acres, so you get x amount of tags”. They have a complex (to me) system of how they allocate landowner elk tags called the EPLUS program. You have to fill out a bunch of forms, they do a survey (supposedly) and then let you know how many allocations you get (they don’t just mail you an envelope full of tags). Then you or someone else buys a landowner elk tag using one of your allocation numbers. However that does not mean you yourself can shoot all the allocations you receive. For the most part an individual can only have one tag per species per year regardless if you are the actual landowner and you have multiple allocations. Now I know there are exceptions and loopholes to this but I don’t know the details. Where your property is located (they have certain elk mgmt zones) also plays into things.

I don't doubt in the least that many landowners get their elk after the season and gut it in the barn out of the wind. I don't begrudge them a bit. Elk eat a LOT of their hay and grass.

In draw only area's here in Wyoming, a landowner and/or his immediate family, or in the case of a corporation, can apply for total of two licenses for antelope, deer or elk, if the acreage owned is at least 160 acres, and 1000 days use by the species being applied for. It still cost the same , just more or less guaranteed tags for those 2 applicants. Applications need be made by a certain date to the local game warden that approves the application.

Colorado has OTC licenses for some seasons, so none of those units have landowner tags. The totally limited units do have transferable landowner vouchers and entry starts at one application for 160 acres, up to a dozen or so for around 5,000 acres. Beyond that, the threshold is around 10,000 acres for the ranching for wildlife program where in exchange for transferable licenses, a % has to be for the public to hunt your place. In the totally limited areas, 160 acres doesn’t guarantee you get a license, much less a bull license.

Game damage hunts are different.

Oh and then on the Eastern plains, there’s a very broad season, so essentially guaranteed

IIRC in UT, if you own 5000+ contiguous acres you can apply to be in the Conservation Wildlife Management Program. You get tags to do with as you want and the number is set by the DWR based on population and how many you are willing to give to a residents only public drawing.

Some areas in Wyoming do actually have a draw for landowner licenses, quotas affect it. The licenses can not be transferred in Wyoming.
Most western states have programs for landowners to get tags for their own property.

[quote=wytex
Some areas in Wyoming do actually have a draw for landowner licenses, quotas affect it. The licenses can not be transferred in Wyoming.
Most western states have programs for landowners to get tags for their own property.
[/quote]

It depends on if the number of landowner license application exceedes the license quota for the area. Back in the day when elk area 3 was limited quota with 10 licenses, most years there was only 1 maybe 2 licenses available after the landowner licenses were issued. There were some nonresident landowners that accounted for the nonresident quota.
The immediate family members applying for the license have to fill out the landowner application form and the landowner signs it and sends it to the game warden, so the license isn't transferred it's issued to the person on the front page. I assume the landowner licenses on behalf of a corporation is the same way, as one person I knew that had shares in one of those , had to participate in a corporate drawing to see who the lucky 2 people were that got the landowner elk licenses in a very hard to draw area.

In WY and ID and probably a few other states, a landowner tag is normally valid for the entire unit....whether on that landowner's property, a neighbor's property or on public land. That is to say if you receive a landowner tag, you're not restricted to only hunt that particular private property that the tag was issued for. I am not sure how it works for property owners who's spreads cover multiple game units. I am sure it gets complicated, fast.

Just one more piece to the puzzle.....

Doesn't matter how many area's the property covers, the landowner applies for a license in an area, and that's the only place it's good. Someone else in the family chain can apply for one in the other area and that's the only place that license is good for, and the 2 license limit has been met.

Yes, landowners license are valid for an entire area, not just the private property. If it's a LQ area then a a draw may take place as mentioned within the landowner pool.
I do believe that you must apply for 1 specific area, like Ranch13 said stated.

Ranch13, can you explain the "1000 day use" thing? There's not 1000 days in a year, so curious if it's something like "number of elk * days they are on the property" or something like that.

I have a friend who gets LO tag and she shoots a MONSTER every year during archery on her land.

simple math, 20 head of elk x 50 days... 200 antelope x 5 days etc.

Thanks all. That helps explain some things. I am used to Florida where we only have deer and pigs to hunt