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10/5/06


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Rocky Mountain News - Denver,CO,USA... Ballard, outdoors writer and 30-year elk hunting veteran, passes on the old ways he learned from his father and uncles at their elk camp near the headwaters of ...


Weather changes trumpet the beginning of hunting season

Grand Junction Sentinel - Grand Junction,CO,USA... Early forecasts from Colorado Division of Wildlife biologists herald a banner hunting season, with ample populations of deer and elk and plenty of licenses ...

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Received this pic from Bob Z- will see if I can get more info on it.
This Elk was killed with a bow in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness.
He green scored 575" and should net out at about 530" non typical.
He has an unbelievable outside spread of 79".
This is the biggest bull ever taken with any weapon.
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This story is a bunch of bullPosted: Thursday, Oct 05, 2006 - 11:23:40 pm PDTBy MIKE McLEAN

Reported record Idaho elk was shot in Canada in fenced area
Staff writerCOEUR d'ALENE -- The story circulating with an e-mail photo of a ginormous elk is quite a load of bull."This elk was killed with a bow in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness" of North Central Idaho, the caption says. "He green-scored at 575 inches and should net out at about 530 nontypical." That would make it the biggest bull elk ever taken with any kind of weapon.The world record score for a nontypical elk taken by fair chase is 450 6/8 inches for a bull harvested in Arizona. The Idaho record is nontypical 430 4/8 inches taken in Latah County in 1977. Nontypical means one antler doesn't closely match the other.The bull in the photo apparently is real. The story that comes with it isn't.The description with the e-mail photo was immediately greeted with skepticism by Idaho wildlife experts."The 79-inch spread and all of the measurements are too big for a wild elk," said Jim Hayden, regional wildlife biologist for Idaho Department of Fish and Game.He said more than 40,000 elk have been measured in the Panhandle Region and none scored close to 500 inches."There is no way anything up here could have produced that elk," he said.Just to the south of the Panhandle Region, the Selway-Bitterroot habitat simply doesn't provide enough nutrition for an elk to get that large, he said."This is a domestic elk that was fed high-quality protein and selectively bred from other large bulls," he said.As it turns out, the elk in the photo isn't from Idaho or even the United States. As big as it is, it doesn't qualify for a score in the leading hunting record book.Mark Hatfield, one of the official scorekeepers with Boone and Crockett Club in Missoula, said the elk came from a fenced game farm in Canada.Tony Barber, manager and guide at Laurentian Wildlife Estate near Arundel, Quebec, confirmed the elk came from his private reserve.He said the Manitoban elk -- the largest elk species -- had a 12x10 rack.Barber said the free-range animal had no supplemental feed and its massive size was due to "pure genetics."He said he has picked up shed antlers from the elk that scored more than 500 inches four consecutive years."People thought I was crazy," he said. "But then it measured even bigger."He said the elk was difficult to find on the 1,000 acre fenced estate in the Laurentian Mountains.Trophy elk hunts at the estate start at $4,900, according to the business' Web site.Hunting purists don't consider the taking of an elk from a fenced area as fair chase."It would not be eligible for our records," Hatfield said.Mike McLean can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2011, or by e-mail at
mmclean@cdapress.co
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Summit Daily News - Frisco,CO,USA... Colorado has been the most popular elk hunting state in the country, mainly because 40 percent of the Rocky Mountain elk population is found here. ...
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