I am looking for some advice from people with experience elk hunting in Utah. I have been applying for an archery elk tag in Utah and now have 6 points. Where I am now living, I can archery hunt every year with a reasonable chance to shoot a 300-340 bull. Since I have pretty good opportunities now as far as being able to hunt every year, I would like to make Utah my shot at getting a really big bull in one of the primo units. My question is, what season offers the best chance at taking a big bull? With the archery seasons in August, it seems like this would make for really tough hunting with hot weather and no rutting action. Maybe I am wrong on this. Does the best rut activity fall during muzzleloader or rifle season? Maybe by the time rifle season rolls around many of the elk have been pushed onto private land and maybe many of the rifle permits require too many points to have a reasonable chance at drawing. Of course all of this probably varies from unit to unit. If anyone can share some info I would really appreciate it!
Utah Elk Seasons
- Thread starter bigsky2
- Start date
woodtick
Veteran member
With 6 points you are well behind the curve. Your best bet is to stick with archery if you ever want a realistic chance of drawing a premo unit, even those might be out of reach with 6 points. I'd suggest watching the moon phases the years you apply, only apply when you have a good moon for the last 7-12 days of the archery hunt. The hunting pressure is pretty minimal and some elk do find there way to private but most the premo units have very little of it. Same thing for rifle and muzz hunts, apply when the moon phase is good, I drew a rifle tag on a bad year and had full moon coupled with extremely hot weather so the rut was nonexistent. Utah is the 2nd driest state in the lower 48, so expect hot weather no matter what hunt you draw. If you want a little more in depth info on units just shoot me a PM.
Woodtick pretty much nailed it. You can keep with a rifle or muzz tag, but you might die before you draw. If you have the time to scout, the archery hunt can be good. Find a big bull early and kill him before he gets cows. When I drew my LE archery tag, my best chances at the biggest bulls were early in the hunt before they got their cows, but I scouted for 19 days and had them pinpointed. I did the same thing in Nevada a couple years ago and got on the biggest bulls the first week of the hunt before the rut even started.
RUTTIN
Veteran member
The only other problem with the archery hunt are you have all the spike elk and deer archery hunters out there also, I even had a early rifle cow elk hunt going on during my Nebo archery hunt a few years ago. The rifle and muzzle hunters don't have any other people out there and the rut is in full swing making for a fun hunt. But like was stated by the others it may be a long time before you draw a tag.
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