Drought question AZ elk racks this year

My question is looks like some people didn't put in this year due to the drought. Does this apply to units outside the White Mountains? I live in SL drive through units 1, 2, 3b every day. I see hundreds of elk. Bulls have nice velvet growing already and herds of 50 plus animals looking nice and fat! Don't some bulls find isolated areas that hold lots moisture and hit lower alfalfa fields or many lakes/streams in the area? Even golf courses, peoples yards and private ponds. Will drought really affect all the bulls racks?

Spent the last week camped in the forest around Flagstaff and Williams, looking at the elk and doing some preliminary scouting for a friend. While it is extremely dry, we still found plenty of tanks with water, but they are drying fast. I hope there is a lot of monsoon rain in the next couple months.

Here in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming even when it is dry we have a significantly greater amount of water than the desert Southwest. We see a bigger impact on mass put on the racks. A bad drought tends to affect the water table and springs the next year.

My experience with hunting elk for 40+ years (but only 10 in AZ) is that in drought years, the lowers are pretty normal but the top ends stop growing as big and the racks tend to get brittle. There will be lots of broken bulls to look at this year, especially on the late hunts in the canyons..

Thanks Blank but I'm glad to be chasing bulls even if in lesser unit. Even if drought. Then waiting on more bonus points.

LAST EDITED ON May-09-18 AT 01:00AM (MST)[p]I agree with what blank said. Mostly on the broken up bulls. The bulls wont have nearly as dense of antlers as well as smaller top ends. Late hunters are gonna have a tough time finding unbroken bulls. I was looking at precipitation maps earlier and parts of unit 1 and 27 up until a month or so ago were actually doing decent on moisture. Getting pretty bad everywhere now. Starting to get to the point of not worrying about antler size but worrying about if stuff is gonna start dying if it doesn't rain until July.

In my experience, yes the drought will affect a huge percentage of the bulls in the region. One upside is the elk seem to move to their winter range earlier in search of food. Great observation in regard to brittle antlers. It does seem to be true.

Fingers crossed for some monsoon moisture! I have a late season tag this year and hope to not see a bunch of broken bulls!

Maybe should concider pulling trigger closer to sept 14 then if I hold out rut might bust up some bigger herd bulls by 27th.