24hourcampfire.com
24hourcampfire.com
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Hop To
Page 2 of 2 1 2
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 5,794
Campfire Tracker
Offline
Campfire Tracker
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 5,794
We killed three cows in the last week and a half on the bow hunt (we can kill a spike or a cow). One 4 year old cow netted 158 lbs. of boneless meat. One two and a half year old netted 128 lbs. of boneless meat. My year and a half old cow netted 115 lbs. of boneless meat. We got a couple of big bulls in the last couple of years, a 330 bull and a 365 bull. They netted 225 lbs and 250 lbs. of boneless meat respectively (they get more fat with age, not necessarily more meat). I have killed a bunch of rag horn (2.5 year old bulls) and 3.5 year old bulls. They run a bit more than cows of the same age. I will get 150 off a rag horn and 175 lbs. off a 3.5-5.5 year old bull. A really accurate rule of thumb is, you get 1/3 of the live weight in boneless meat on elk and deer. We have tested this over and over again and have found it to be right on the money. I have seen some absolutely HUGE 420+ B.C. bulls and they still won't best 950 lbs. live weight. They do tend to weigh about 3 tons by the end of the day when packing them out though ;o) Don't even get me started on my last two moose. Even though they were in the 850 lb. range live weight, by the end of the day, I swear they were 1,500 lbs. Few meats are more dense than moose. In fact, I don't think their is a denser/heavier meat. Flinch

Last edited by Flinch; 09/10/09.

Flinch Outdoor Gear broadhead extractor. The best device for pulling your head out.
BP-B2

Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 5,117
T
Campfire Tracker
Online Content
Campfire Tracker
T
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 5,117
I don't know what my elk weighed live but I was able to haul her out whole and use a loader to skin her out since I shot her off of a hay circle SE of Westcliff on a RFW property. It was very hot that day so I took her to a local processor in Westcliff and he had scales, without head and hide she tipped them right at 500 lbs. Low hunting pressure and lots of quality feed will grow a very big animal even a cow.

Joined: Dec 2004
Posts: 2,323
C
Campfire Regular
Offline
Campfire Regular
C
Joined: Dec 2004
Posts: 2,323
Unfortunately the biggest elk I've seen were never weighed. Not much point in estimating weights from a bunch of little parts. But my cousin runs a custom meat cutting and sausage business. He had a whole bull carcass in last week that was just under 650 lbs. My hunting buddy killed one a few years before that was 620 lbs at the butcher. So a very few really big ones are out there!
This is the one I took last year. I have no idea what he weighed but he was big bodied, probably my biggest. It was kinda funny when our little front end loader couldn't take the weight and we just had to skid him onto a trailer to get him back to camp. It sure was nice to drop him in a hay field!
[Linked Image]

Last edited by castnblast; 09/10/09.
Joined: Oct 2008
Posts: 387
Campfire Member
Offline
Campfire Member
Joined: Oct 2008
Posts: 387
We leave leg bones in and everything else stays on the hill. We cut the tenderloins ourselves and we have been averaging about 200# of cut amd wrapped meat for the last few years per animal. Bear in mind these were all spikes as we have to let the big ones go.


Goodnight Chesty Puller... Wherever you are.
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 26,101
A
Campfire Ranger
Offline
Campfire Ranger
A
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 26,101
Originally Posted by UtahLefty
IME, for RM elk, average cow will run 350-550, average bull run 500-750.

a really big cow will be 550-600, a really big bull will go 800-900.


What Lefty said........

Out of 40+ elk I've killed, I had one bull that would've broke 800 lbs. I've seen a few more killed while guiding that would've been in the 800+ lb range. In the late 60's, there was a bull killed near Lake City that the DOW guesstimated ate 900-1000 lbs. I also watched a bull during one winter in the Gunnsion Basin that I'm pretty sure would be pushing a 1000 lbs--and would have probably net scored ~400+ B & C points.

My dad killed a cow 30 years ago that was HUGE--probably over 600 lbs.

But most are what Lefty said--cows over 500 lbs are rare, and bulls over 700 lbs rarer still.

In the 1960's, Alaska transplanted some Roosevelt elk (which run about 10% heavier than RM's ) onto an island of off the coast. The island had not had grazing ungulates on it for thousands of years. With an initial excess of feed, many of the first generation of bulls born on the island grew to 1000+ lbs. Several of the bigger bulls were killed and weighed by Alaska, and one come in around 1500 lbs. But once the feed was grazed on for a generation, the later generations of Roosies return to "normal" weights.


Casey


Casey

Not being married to any particular political party sure makes it a lot easier to look at the world more objectively...
Having said that, MAGA.
IC B2

Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 397
D
Campfire Member
Offline
Campfire Member
D
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 397
In the 1960s or early 1970s the meat lab at the University of Wyoming weighed a large number of all kinds of game animals, hog dressed(whole with the lower legs, hide and head off), and found for elk that branch-antlered bulls averaged about 550 pounds, adult cows 450 pounds, spike bulls 350 pounds and calves 250 pounds. While the numbers weren't exactly 450, and so on, the differences weren't much. So, Utah Lefty is pretty much on the mark, based on measured hog-dressed weights and tossing in the weight of the skull, hide, lower legs, and innards. Anything bigger is probably being fed or frequenting something like an alfalfa field.


Living proof that expressing your opinion is not a good career advancement strategy.

There comes a time in a man's life when he has to start cutting and quit straddling fences. Ed Abbey
Joined: Dec 2007
Posts: 3,589
Campfire Tracker
Offline
Campfire Tracker
Joined: Dec 2007
Posts: 3,589
This one produced 187 pounds of boneless meat.

I know because I had the weigh the boxes to get it on the plane in Denver just last week.

[Linked Image]


"Somehow, the sound of a shotgun tends to cheer one up" -- Robert Ruark
Page 2 of 2 1 2

Moderated by  RickBin 

Link Copied to Clipboard
YB23

Who's Online Now
644 members (1234, 257 roberts, 1lessdog, 2500HD, 257Bob, 257 mag, 73 invisible), 2,764 guests, and 1,295 robots.
Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Forum Statistics
Forums81
Topics1,187,648
Posts18,399,130
Members73,817
Most Online11,491
Jul 7th, 2023


 







Fish & Game Departments | Solunar Tables | Mission Statement | Privacy Policy | Contact Us | DMCA
Hunting | Fishing | Camping | Backpacking | Reloading | Campfire Forums | Gear Shop
Copyright © 2000-2024 24hourcampfire.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5
(Release build 20201027)
Responsive Width:

PHP: 7.3.33 Page Time: 0.111s Queries: 15 (0.003s) Memory: 0.8282 MB (Peak: 0.9209 MB) Data Comp: Zlib Server Time: 2024-03-28 18:16:18 UTC
Valid HTML 5 and Valid CSS