A Minnesota Secret...

jblenker

New member
Joined
Nov 12, 2018
Messages
9
Location
Albany, Minnesota
Not a lot of people know that there are quality elk in Minnesota or even know there are elk in Minnesota at all. I was fortunate enough to draw a once-in-a-lifetime tag two years ago so I thought I'd share a couple pictures. After doing a lot research and talking with locals I was able to get a feel for where the elk were and where there travel corridor was. Since the land is so flat up there glassing wasn't much of an option. After putting in a few long days of hunting I was able to get this guy on the ground on day four. He is by far the biggest bodied bull I've ever killed or even seen. It's even the biggest bodied bull my dad has ever seen who's been hunting elk for 40 years. His rear quarters weighted over 100 lbs each and the backstraps were 25 lbs each. I was almost more wowed by his body size than his antler size. I actually didn't realize how big he was until I walked up to him. You could say he had ground inflation rather than shrinkage. Similar to what happened to Randy and his big Montana bull from Season 4 of Fresh Tracks.

Thanks to the efforts of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and other conservation groups Minnesota is able to have an elk hunt every year and the elk can maintain a healthy herd.

This all being said the hunt is only open for residents, so for those of you from Minnesota, start applying and you could have an opportunity at a really good bull.

Good luck to everyone on their remaining hunts this year and future hunts to come.

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Congrats, what a bull!

Have only seen one wild bull in Minnesota and that was north of a buddy's place north of Grygla.
 
true random....

Congrats on the bull....I would love to draw the tag....I'll keep trying.
 
Congrats on the bull!! I’ve been applying for years with no luck. For those that want bigger elk herds in our state, contact Rep Dan Fabian. A few years back he passed legislation that took the control of MN’s elk population out of the hands of the DNR and put it into the hands of the Department of Agriculture. Our elk herds now are as big as we’ll have in the foreseeable future because of this.
 
Its definitely a lot of back and forth between the farmers/dept. of ag. and the DNR. I got to witness first hand both sides of the issue. It was very interesting.
 
Great Bull! Its is crazy to think MN (and many other states) had bulls like that running through most of the state back in the day.
 

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