Hunting Elk
Elk stand up to 5ft tall (at the shoulder) and can weigh over 1,000 lbs. A large deer may weigh 400 lbs and stand just over 3 ft tall. Elk can run up to 45mph in short bursts; mulies run at a similar speed. Whitetails can reach about 35mph. An elk can (and sometimes will) kill you.
Hunting elk for non-residents in Idaho costs something in the neighborhood of $1100: the license, the tag, other expenses. For residents, the cost is something around $100 not including transportation. Non-resident hunting fees cover ½ DNR’s budget; almost $30M/yr. That’s a lot of hunters coming from out of state.
Lots of people come here to hunt critters: bighorn sheep, moose, bear, pronghorn, lions, wolves, and of course elk (along with other smaller critters). It’s not hard for a non-resident (or residents either for that matter) to spend $10k or more for guided hunts. Elk hunting is particularly popular; so popular, they hold a lottery for permits to hold the number of hunters down.
However, for some of us, the problem isn’t hunting elk, it’s chasing them out of the garden.
Some of y’all think deer* can cause damage to a garden … elk can render a garden into non-existence.
This photo was taken in my (former) back yard.
*All elk are deer, deer are not always elk
Here in Brown county there is an unwritten rule. EVERYTHING on our property belongs to US and gov’t employees have no say about it. Imagine the gall, trying to charge people to pay for stuff on their own land.
2 weeks ago the was a small dead deer in our backyard. Our woods behind our house come to within about 20 feet of the house. That deer was about 25 feet from the house. No indication of why it died. All summer we watched a mother deer and her 2 fawns. Other than the dead one, we haven’t seen the other 2 since.
My big idea was to drag that dead dear to the far rear of our woods and cover it with several feet of leaves. I’ve done this with various animals over the years, raccoons, ‘possums, rabbits, squirrels.
Well, that deer was deceivingly heavy. I latched onto a leg and immediately knew this wasn’t going to happen. I estimated it weighed 60-80 lbs based on my experience with 40 pound bags of softener salt, dog food, etc. So I dragged it about 20 feet into the woods, scraped the leaves from the ground, dug a hole 2 feet deep, buried the deer, and mounded leaves over it.
In 5 years I’ll uncover it, dismantle the bones and put them in 5 gallon buckets of bleach water for a few days. (yeah, right)
Ima looking a future steaks on the grill!
Made some elk chili last weekend. YUM!!!
If you have elk in the garden maybe you need to bow hunt from your roof.
Three grizzly bears shot. The link is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csIGpDMssoc
I get my grizzly fence this spring!