West Texas Free Range Elk Hunt

These were some fun hunts last year and we are starting to book for this year.

Location is Van Horn Texas- Hunt will take place over a large alfalfa field and surrounding hills. These are totally free range elk that have migrated down from NM and some transplanted many years ago.

Hotel lodging per room for $125.00 for the entire hunt.

Hunt cost is $1500 for the hunt and guiding which includes hotel lodging, game skinning/quartering,brunch and dinner.
Harvest Fee of $3,500 for any size bull. Bulls range in size from 200" on up to a few that will hit the 350" mark. Bow or rifle. Hunts will most likely be conducted with 2 hunter groups, I can take a group up to 3. Single hunters welcome.

Hunts available starting mid August through September, I can do these hunts later in the year but dates are limitted. Only a handful of hunts are available, first come first serve. Similar elk hunts in west Texas start off at $7500 and go way up from there so this is a great deal!

To book or for more information give me a call anytime
(915) 328-0645 Mike

How many days is the hunt and what kind of success rate do you have?

Thanks!

dang it Mike, stop tempting me!

Rob,
Its well worth it! And we can probably get it done with a bow.

2.5 day hunt, this is a new ranch that we are doing these hunts on. Its the only food source arround so everyone that books should be going home with a couple ice chests full of great eating elk. I have done these hunts nearby on surrounding ranches and success varried on the ranches but this should be at least 100% shot opportunity.

I have a fellow forum member who went out on this last year wanting to come out again this year and is looking for someone else to join him.

This will be a really fun hunt with some great meat to take home.
Anyone care to join him?

PM sent

Got it and replied. Hope to have you out.

I'm out for sure if 1st week of September, so I will hereby ignore this thread unless you tell me end of August.

Kmon1 is the other hunter. He is flexible. If your in we can do it end of August

Ok Rob is not able to make it but if anyone would like to join kmon1 were open for the first weekend in September.

if they are really wild elk, how is that legal in sept?

There are no seasons or limits on elk in the state of Texas, whether they are wild or not.

They are free game in Texas!

One thing I can promise you...if you go on this hunt with Mike you will not starve. That guy can flat out cook some campfire grub.

At one time elk were hunted in Texas with landowner issued permits/tags. Then the state changed the status of Elk to be an exotic, be they free range wild elk or those on high fence places. The state stockedelk in west Texas years ago now they are killing them, at some of the state owned property where they have their bighorn facility. Another hunting opertunity that the state is not allowing Texans to enjoy.

I always thought it was strange the way elk and bison are handled in Texas. Native animals handled as exotics/livestock. Wouldn't it be more economical to have seasons especially for TPWD? Just my .02

I guess since the wild Elk are on private property and the state was doing surveys for how many permits to issue they cut costs by just clasifying them as exotics and taking that out of their hands and putting it in the hands of the land owners.

A bit of info on Elk in Southwest Texas can be found at the Circle Ranch website

http://circleranchtx.com/pages/elk-crisis

3 Hunts left

Are they provide guide facility with us ?

What is the standard of their lodging?

Since I have talked with Mike about these hunts and booked one. I will try to answer your questions.

Will have a guide. The meals will be provided, some resturant some cooked out. Lodging is provided in a hotel.

This will be a 1x1 guided hunt and lodging will be in a hotel. We used to do these hunts out of a spike camp but are now much closer to town to also grab some good hot meals from the local diners.

No fancy lodging but thats why the cost is not $7500 to $9500 like everyone else in the area.

Anyone looking for a great free range elk hunt had better jump on this. I hunted aoudad with Mike a couple years ago and he and his guide Mike (guy on left in 1st pic)worked hard to make my hunt everything my son and I had hoped for and more (even if it was one of the shortest hunts I have ever been on....Thanks to my guide Mike)

Keith

I am planning for a hunting vacation.
Pls suggests some ideas.

I am currently in Texas.

2 hunts lefts. I can conduct the hunts as soon as early september or during the winter months.

that is a great website kmon

Thanks keith, I had a blast with you and you're son as well.

Here is a herd of 23 elk in one of the fields we saw yesterday evening. Several small bulls in the herd, 2 nice 6x6 bulls came in right at dark but pictures were to dark to make out.

up

Packing up getting ready to head out to meet Mike Friday afternoon for a hunt. Looking forward to this trip.

man,good luck. hope you get a monster.

if the hunt price is 1500 and i wanna shoot a cow, how much would it cost?

No cows right now sorry.

First hunt was a success. Kmon1 should be posting hunt report soon!

what did he get? where are the pics?

He said he will post tonight or in the morning. Hunted hard and got on some nice bulls. Ended up taking what we guessed to be an 8yr old bull last few minutes of light yesterday evening. I will let him tell the story.

could you PM me when there are any cows available?

Well like Mike said it was a long hunt, but a lot of fun and we saw probally 30+ elk including some nice bulls. What I think was the biggest bull we saw was with 3 cows and would leave the alfalfa field early into brush on the bext place where we could not hunt him, not to be seen again until the next morning early leaving the field again from long range. Even though the bulls were just sheddign their velvet the RUT was definately on their minds. We heard no bugles but one bull with a group of cows and small bulls was checkign out every cow and chasing them around.

The hunt should have been over Saturday afternoon but I did something I have not done in years MISSED well if you shoot at enough critters that can happen.

Sunday sfternoon we decided to setup on the west side of the alfalfa field where most of the elk were comming to and from the field and since they were comming in at different times Sid and myself setup behind some old hay bales which is setup for a blind 6 hours ot broiling in the sun so without any game seen. Mike saw the main herd in the brush headed toward another field so we relocated only to have that herd stop in the brush and start feeding it looked like on Mesquite beans. So Sid and I went back to the hay bales about sundown. With about 10minutes of shootign time left a one bull came out into the field and this time I didn't miss and as they say the work begain.

This lone bull was like Mike said older probally at least 8, by our guess and a couple more that looked at him agreed with that.
The Bull is a 4X5 sith some nice character and very good mass for the size rack and tine legnth.

Awesome hunt guys... awesome mass...being he was on alafala, you won't find a better tasting elk!!!!!

Great job..

Nice!

congrats

congrats! that is great!

Congrats on your bull, well done brother!!! That old bull reminds me of a bull I took in SE Colorado a few years back. Old and heavy but with short points.

Congrats on a great bull and what sounds to be an awesome hunt.

congrats, I'm jealous!

Thanks guys it was a blast.

Nice elk!

Congrats on the nice bull. Bobo is right. That will be some good eating for sure!

Awesome!

Congrats on a Texas Elk! That's not so common. Great character.