Western Elk Part 2: States, Seasons, and Tags

This is a continuation of the conversation between James and Joe from The Fair Chase Podcast, focusing on strategies for different types of elk tags.

Catch the full discussion here

James: So Joe, what are the different categories of elk tags?

Joe: "Basically there's 3 different categories for the types of tags that you can draw and those happen in different points of the year and some cost a lot more than others, some of them cost points some of them don't. 

Starting just kind of at the most simple is over the counter. That's exactly what it sounds like. I can roll into Sheels in Colorado, buy a tag, and go hunting that next day. It is purely over the counter.

That opportunity is going away after this year for the archery seasons for non-residents in Colorado, but you still have firearm opportunity that's over the counter going forward this year. If you're on the fence about elk hunting, you can still go and do that in those OTC states. 

That was my first elk hunt. I remember I bought my very first elk tag in a gas station in Telluride, Colorado.

The second would be a general tag. That'd be like your Montana General. Wyoming divided up their General tags a little bit now where there's an East, a South and a West. But you get these cluster of units, or this cluster of an area, that you can hunt and a lot of those have a little bit longer or significantly longer season to them.

Then you have limited entry. This is the stuff that you build points to. Every year I buy points in Utah and Colorado and all over the place and those points that you build throughout the year, or years, you can apply to a limited entry tag. What that means is there's only a certain amount of people that can hunt in a specific unit and ideally it's supposed to be a better quality hunt - bigger bulls, less pressure, things like that.

Then you have like your landowner tags, ranging from wildlife tags, acquired through a private landowner who are allocated some tags that they can sell. That obviously comes at a price and is a little bit harder to define because there's so many little one-offs as well."

James: What about secondary opportunities if you don't draw your preferred tags?

Joe: "Past all this, let's say you put in for all the limited entry tags, you put in for General, couldn't afford a landowner tag that year, you're not quite OTC time yet, there's still some opportunities to do something else. Those are like your seconds list from Colorado or your alternate list from Montana.

Those are like if a guy like me puts in and draws a Montana tag, but then a week later I drew Arizona, a tag that I've been trying to get forever.

So, I turn my Montana tag back in and it goes back into the general pool of tags. Then, they do the secondary drawing in July for other people who put in points. You can get one of these tags with no points out of your point pool towards that tag. It’s awesome"

James: How do you keep track of all the different tag application dates and requirements?

Joe: "I've kind of built a spreadsheet over the years of this is when the draw dates are due, this is when the application dates are due, this is when it's coming back out and most of that takes place in that first quarter of the year. 

So a lot of it's due by February, March, and April for most of the states. And then you kind of find out what you're drawing between April and June. Now we're in kind of that like secondary phase where all the secondary and leftover tags are starting to slowly come out.

I kind of a close eye on it because I'm kind of obsessed with it. There's other avenues and different apps and pages that you can follow that kind of bring you back up to snuff. 

Honestly, a mix of a lot of things. So I'll just kind of watch different forums and pages like GoHunt has a good one, WTA their tag system is pretty solid. If you really want to be hands-free of it and kind of let someone do it for you, which a lot of people do, the WTA tags one works really well."

James: How much should someone budget for applying for tags?

Joe: "If you did everything, it's going to be a few thousand dollars. If you got into everything, everything and played the sheep and the random lottery games, then you're fronting tens of thousands if you did all of it. Most of this you're getting back because you're not drawing at all."

James: What's a common mistake people make when planning an elk hunt?

Joe: "Usually assuming that low point units aren't worth hunting or that 'Oh I didn't draw anything this year, I'm too good to go to OTC' or 'I'm not going to do a general, I'm waiting for a limited entry.' That's the biggest thing that I've seen over the years. I've met guys that have never elk hunted a day in their life and they have seven points in the state and it's not because they don't want to go, it's because they have this conception or perception that they only want to go if it's good. But they're going to step into the Super Bowl without playing a down of football in their life."

James: What do you prioritize when making decisions about where to hunt elk?

Joe: "Opportunity and for me it's like length of season. I'm not a fan of Colorado for that because it's a one week or whatever, five days for rifle or your month of archery. Montana's got a much longer season and then the thing that I like about that too is it doesn't pigeon hole me into one unit. 

I can go or one like touching units kind of thing. I have the whole Western half. Or Wyoming, I have the whole West General unit, the whole South General unit. It gives me more opportunity if I walk into an area and I'm like 'Ah this is crazy pressured' or I'm not seeing the elk or something happened here, a burn happened in my unit, I can move."

James: What percentage of your elk have you killed on OTC versus other types of tags?

Joe: "All of them but two have been on General. One has been on a limited entry and one has been OTC. One only one on OTC, and general that's any general. So all of them but two have been Montana, my limited entry one was in Wyoming and one OTC in Colorado."

Thanks for reading!