Elk Hunting Guides and Outfitters – Trips and Guided Hunts

Elk is the name of two different members of the deer family. One is found in North America, which is offered in a number of areas by elk hunting guides and outfitters. The other lives in Europe and looks like the American moose.

The American Elk: The Shawnee Indians and the scientists of later times called the American elk the wapiti. This big game animal was given the name of elk by the early English colonists. They paid no attention to the fact that the name elk had long been used for the European moose. Nevertheless, the name stuck, and is still most commonly used by hunters planning trips and guided hunts. The American elk is a close relative of the red deer of Europe and Asia. It is smaller than the European elk {European moose}. The bull, or male, elk stands about 5 feet high at the shoulders, and may weigh from 700 to 1,000 pounds. Its rounded antlers may spread as much as 5 feet. Those of a grown bull will have a total of about 12 points. Antlers grow during the summer months and are shed in late winter. The cow, or female, is smaller than the male, and has no antlers. Elk are brownish-gray with a yellowish-tan rump. The legs, head, and main neck area of the elk are dark brown and these colors help hide this big game animal from hunters on a hunt or trip seeking them out.

During September and October, the bulls fight for leadership in the herd. An exceptional bull may keep a harem of 60 or more cows, but the average one keeps only a dozen or so at a time. As the elk travel from high mountain valleys called parks to the lower valleys, they gather into large herds of both sexes and all ages. Here, where the snow is not too deep, they spend the winter. Spring finds them moving slowly back into the higher mountains. The calves are born in May or June. It is rare for a cow to bear more than one calf. An elk calf is light tawny-brown, with many white spots. These spots are lost during the first change of coat in August.

Most of the food of elk is grasses. They also eat the twigs and needles of fir, juniper, and many hardwood trees and shrubs, especially during the winter. Unfortunately, many of the larger elk herds of the United States and western Canada do not have enough winter range for feeding. Many of the other animals die of starvation or from diseases such as pneumonia and necrotic stomatitis, {calf diphtheria}. For this reason in many areas elk hunting guides and outfitters have a more lead way on the number that they can kill in one season. Wolves and cougars or also called mountain lions are among the natural enemies of elk. Bears and coyotes kill some calves and sick or crippled adults.

Elk were once over most of the United States and southern Canada. Hunters killed them in such large numbers that they survived only in the region between the eastern Rockies and the Pacific Coast. They have been reintroduced in small numbers to several regions in the United States. These include parts of Pennsylvania, Virginia, Michigan, South Dakota, New Mexico, and Arizona to name a few. There are a number of areas that an outfitter or guide have set up places that allow planned trips for an elk hunt in locations that normally don’t have this big game animal. The largest herds live in Yellowstone Park, on Montana’s Sun River, and in Washington’s Olympic Mountains.

The European Elk: This largest European deer is much like the huge awkward American moose, with its scoop-shaped antlers. During the Middle Ages it was sometimes used as a beast of burden in Scandinavia. But the reindeer took its place later. The elk has been well protected by law in European countries from hunting outfitters and guides, but apparently this big game is gradually dying out. Some elk still exist in forest of Norway, Sweden, Russia, and Germany.

Another species of deer, known as the Irish elk, is extinct. It probably belonged to the fallow deer family. This elk was immense and distinguished by its enormous antlers, sometimes 11 feet from tip to tip. We can’t even imagine what that must have been like to hunt.

The Altai wapiti and Manchurian wapiti of Asia are the largest of all the red deer. But they do not have such huge antlers as the wapiti of America.