We booked a 6 day Elk and Mulie hunt starting on thanksgiving weekend this year. We booked it with Lepley Creek Outfitters in cascade Montana. They hunt 40,000 acres of private land in the big belt mountains. For those of you who have hunted with an Elk outfitter before, is it one of those deals where all you have to do is pull the trigger? My biggest worry is that it will be so easy, that it will become more like shooting than hunting. This happened to me last year in Texas on a whitetail shoot (Yes, shoot). I would like to know if there is still that enjoyable challenge that some outfitters take away. I don't know how these hunts work, so I thought that those of you who have done this before could share their experiences with this. Thanks again
When I was guiding and someone called me before the hunt and asked what to do to get ready, I would tell them to learn to shoot their weapon and to get in shape. Now it was true that during the hunt, the hunter would follow me and then sit/set up where ever I would tell them. I would call the bull in. They would shoot. I would gut, skin, quarter and pack the animal back to camp. Even doing things my (the guide's) way, my hunter still had to be in pretty darned good shape. After a couple of days, if we hadn't filled their tags, the hunter and I would usually discuss the options and I'd let them "help" make the decision as to where we might be going. In Montana, I doubt you're going to be in a "here's the elk, now shoot that one" type of a situation. Unless things are really bad, I always advise people to trust their guide and let them do their job and go and hunt the way they tell you. That is what you're paying for.
I'll speak from an outfitter's point of view. No it's not usually like that, specifically with elk. With that said, you have to understand both sides of the coin. It is your outfitter/guides job to put you on animals, with that (for you guide) comes a lot pressure to get it done in the allotted amount of time, very few guys spend that kind of money simply for the "experience." A lot of guys look at a 6-day hunt as 6 day hunting vacation, an outfitter looks at it as a hunt that they only have 6 days to get the job done. If there is an outfitter that doesn't feel some pressure, I don't know that I would want to hunt with him, it our responsibility to our client. I highly doubt you're going to drive through the pasture, lean across the hood and kill your bull, now mule deer... that is a possibility as you'll be hunting towards the end of the rut. I wouldn't expect it to be easy, and be ready for the mountain hikes, shooting a Texas whitetail out of a box blind down a corn fed sendero will be different for sure. I once had a rather interesting fellow tell me on the way to hunt on opening morning of mule deer season, "I'm not a first day shooter." I told him that if we found the deer I was going to look for he needed to shoot it and he reaffirmed, "I'm not a first day shooter." I quickly made a u-turn and headed back to camp. He said where are we going, I told him we were going back to the lodge because there was someone else that would be ecstatic to shoot that deer if he was there and he could be a spectator with another hunter. As for the hunt itself, I can't say as I've never hunted with LCO, but most mule deer and elk hunts involve a lot of glassing and a lot of walking. I certainly wouldn't be too worried about your elk hunt being a turkey shoot, so-to-speak. Good luck out there!!!
