Nonresidents wanting to fulfill their dreams of a Wyoming elk hunt should be willing to make a major financial commitment.
The median price for a guided elk hunt in Wyoming is $8,000, Tennessee outdoorsman and number cruncher Micheal Gifford told Cowboy State Daily.
That’s compared to roughly $6,700 for a Montana elk hunt, $6,000 in Colorado, and $5,400 in Idaho, he added.
High-end guided hunts can cost a lot more, some hitting $30,000.
Gifford used his skills as a software engineer to launch guidedhunts.io, an online directory that helps sportspeople price hunts for various species across the country.
Paying Big Bucks For Big Bulls
Paying $8,000 for an elk hunt really isn’t out of the ordinary, Cody outdoorsman Guy Eastman told Cowboy State Daily.
Hunts on private land in some premium Wyoming elk hunt areas can easily hit $12,500, said Eastman, who represents the third generation of the prominent outdoor family behind the Eastmans’ outdoors media company.
Hunters who want a crack at some of the West’s biggest trophy bull elk might sink up to $30,000 into a hunt.
Nonresidents willing to plunk down big dollars make a significant contribution to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, CFO Meredith Wood recently told lawmakers.
Hunting and fishing license sales make up roughly 60% of the department’s budget, she said.
Nonresident hunting tag sales, particularly for elk, generate roughly $47.2 million. Resident hunting tag sales generate about $7.8 million, Wood said.
Wyoming hunts consistently rank in “the top 25%” most expensive for nonresidents, Eastman said.
Wyoming Has A Perfect Balance
At first glance, it might not make sense for Wyoming to lead the pack in Western hunting prices.
Colorado has more elk than practically all of the other Western states combined. Montana has some of the country’s most legendary landscapes. And record-shattering trophy bulls are consistently taken from desert herds in Utah, Nevada, and Arizona.
What Wyoming has is a near-perfect balance of everything that out-of-state elk hunters are looking for, Eastman said.
“Wyoming has, in my opinion, the best tradeoff between quantity of hunting opportunity and quality of trophy potential,” he said.
“Colorado has a lot of elk, but not big elk. Idaho has a lot of elk, but not big elk,” he added. "Utah has not very many elk, but big elk. Arizona has not very many elk, but big elk. Wyoming has a lot of elk, and we have some big ones."
And for nonresidents who want an edge of adventure to their hunts, Wyoming has some of the most rugged and remote country in the Lower 48, he said.
“Colorado just doesn’t have country like we have,” Eastman said.
Nonresidents may not hunt in designated wilderness areas in Wyoming without a guide.
Guided Wyoming wilderness elk hunts can easily run in the $7,000 to $8,000 range, Eastman said.
You Gotta Get The Tag
In other states, an elk tag might be included in the outfitter’s fee, Eastman said.
For example, there are guided private land elk hunts in Colorado that run in the $18,000 range, tag included, Eastman said.
That’s because Colorado property owners are allowed to transfer their landowner big game tags to people outside their immediate families.
In Wyoming, landowner tags may be gifted to immediate family members but may not be sold or transferred to non-family members.
Efforts to allow transferable landowner tags in Wyoming have been met with stiff resistance.
So in Wyoming, nonresidents have to make sure they’ve got a tag in hand for the hunt area they desire before lining up an outfitter.
Going Out West Is Worth It
Gifford said he’s come out West to hunt prairie dogs but has yet to go on a Wyoming big-game hunt.
He’d like to, and said that for him and many Eastern hunters, it’s worth the price. It’s a bucket-list hunt for many outdoorsmen.
“A goal of mine is to go around to all the states to go hunting and have adventures in each of them,” he said, adding that when it comes to elk, Wyoming and other Western states are what most hunters dream of.
Like some other Eastern states, Tennessee has been building elk herds.
However, “the elk in Tennessee are smaller,” and there are so few it’s nearly impossible to get a hunting tag, Gifford said.
“If you’re going to hunt elk, you might as well go out West,” he said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
