It’s the stuff a hunter’s dreams are made of. All the time spent practicing, preparing, and hiking over hill and valley pays off with the shot of a lifetime on a monster bull elk with an enormous 6 x 6 rack. You place your sight on the big bull’s vitals, control your breathing and get ready to take that shot you’ve dreamed about your whole life.
For most, the opportunity to go on elk hunting trips doesn’t come along every year. For one thing, it can take years to even draw a tag in a desirable hunting area. Most states which allow elk hunting trips use a lottery system of one sort or another to determine who gets the opportunity to stalk the great wapiti. Even if you hit the jackpot and draw a tag in a good area, you’re faced with the need to find and scout the area, often from across state lines.
The fact is that most elk hunting trips are unsuccessful. But yours doesn’t need to be. Here’s the thing, though: If you really want to take a big elk, the best way to do it is to hunt on an elk hunting preserve.
For starters, booking elk hunting trips on an elk hunting preserve allows you to bypass state licensing requirements. This is because the hunting license requirements are different for an elk hunting preserve than for an individual hoping to hunt on public (or even private) land. In most cases, your outfitter will take care of the details for you.
Another reason elk hunting trips tend to be more successful on an elk hunting preserve is that they are generally guided by experienced elk hunters who eat, sleep and breathe elk hunting all year long. Very few hunters really have the time to do what it takes to pattern trophy elk.
Even if a hunter has the time, it takes years of experience to really know what you’re looking for when scouting and hunting elk, especially if you want to take a record book quality bull. Having an experienced outfitter and guide improves your chances of success on trophy elk hunting trips dramatically by simple virtue of the fact that they spend all year paying attention to the elk and their habits.
Take some time and do your homework before booking a hunt. The best guides will be happy to show you plenty of examples of successful elk hunting trips. Ask for references and actually call and speak with them. Make sure your potential outfitter isn’t just giving out the names and numbers of his friends and family but of actual hunters who they’ve helped to take quality elk. Elk hunting trips can be the stuff of hunting legend. Make sure your outfitter knows what it takes to help you get that once in a lifetime shot at a trophy elk.
Oak Creek Whitetail Ranch in the Missouri Ozarks provides some of North America’s best elk hunting opportunities. Our elk hunting preserve is rigorously managed and the number of hunters allowed to hunt with us each year is limited, providing you the opportunity to get a shot on world class elk. The experienced guides at Oak Creek bring five generations of hunting tradition to make your elk hunting trips truly excellent experiences.