Wapiti Wednesday – Who Wants To Go Elk Hunting With Me?

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My first out of state hunt was a big threshold that I crossed. I had hunted elk most of my life. At 9, I went on my first elk camp trip and I had been into archery that long as well.

I was 21 years old and had hunted my home state quite a bit. I’d even made multiple trips around Oregon with family and friends on various hunts. For the most part, at the time, I didn’t personally know anyone who was hunting out of state, but I had heard about these two guys who got their Oregon elk and then bombed over to Idaho to hunt there. I remember the light bulb going off in my head and thinking, “Wait a minute! You can just go there and hunt elk too?!”

That next winter, I pulled up the Idaho Fish and Game Hunt planner on their website and proceeded to start down a rabbit hole that might have been a key turning point in my life. As a kid, I remember laying in my bed looking at the Oregon game regulations and studying all the dates and tags to see how many hunts I could get. I was trying to have the most amount of days in the woods. As I dove into the Idaho Hunt planner though, this was on a whole new level. An entire state to comb through and figure out! I spent hours upon hours trying to plan my first out of state hunt, and I will never forget purchasing that first non-resident elk tag.

I ended up hunting by myself. Between no one else having the time off or just not wanting to “waste” that much money on an elk tag, I couldn’t convince any of my friends to go. With no chance to really scout anything, I showed up with a lot of ambition and zero direction.

That hunt turned out to be one the best elk hunts I have ever been on. It tested me in every way possible. I followed a herd bull for hours in a hurling rainstorm, wearing nothing but some cheap-o, Bi-Mart camo rain gear. I was so close so many times, but just never got an opportunity. After being completely soaked and dejected, I almost threw in the towel and headed home. After driving to town and getting a burger, I thought, “I gotta give it one more try.” I slipped into the same area I had left the herd that morning, and with a stroke of luck that bull stepped out. He offered me a shot as soon as I bumped into the herd. I could hardly wait the 30 minutes to start looking for blood, and when I came over the hill, I was looking at the first true herd bull I had ever taken. It was a long night, with wind blowing sideways and rain beating me down. The next morning when I woke up, the sun was shining down and I didn’t own a dry piece of gear. I built a fire to dry things out, and made a huge breakfast before heading in to get my last two loads of meat. I will never forget that “having done it” feeling that morning. When everyone doubted me, when I had no idea what I was doing, when I had no one to show me how to do it or where to go, I killed my biggest bull to date, by myself, in a completely new state.

This hunt opened my world and started me on a journey to find the next thing, to travel to new places, and ultimately, it really showed me that I can pick a spot and go anywhere.

Fast forward to today, and many of my best hunting memories are choosing somewhere completely new and figuring it out.

I get tons of questions from you guys, listeners of the podcast, about planning your first elk hunt or planning an out of state hunt. While podcast provides loads of information, I wanted to really take it to the next level. What if I could take a hunter, one of you guys–a listener of the show, and show you from start to finish how to be effective? From how I look at choosing a unit and why, to how to e-scout, and how to make a game plan without ever setting foot in the unit. You and I will both have no idea where to go,