I'd be damned happy to get a tag in any of the units mentioned. I didn't draw this past year.
This is an interesting topic. The focus seems to have gone toward where the most 400" bulls might be coming from, and many define that as "the best". No matter which state or unit, that is still an extremely small fraction of the elk taken, anywhere. EXTREMELY SMALL. What about units that produce large numbers, relatively speaking, of 350+ bulls, with bulls up toward that top end too? Would anyone argue that the White Mtn. Apache Reservation isn't about the best place to hunt elk on this planet? I find it interesting to see so many people place some Utah units as "the best". I agree that they produce some huge bulls, bigger than most of us will ever see, let alone harvest. They're incredibly good units. BUT, what about units that produce much larger numbers of elk, and still produce outsized bulls? Aren't some of those units maybe better?
I've never had the privilege of hunting elk in Utah, but I have hunted them in some good units in Arizona and New Mexico. In 2002, I took the bull of my lifetime in unit 13 in New Mexico. Even with a severe drought, he still scored over 385. I've been told by many people that in a wet year, like we had in 2004 and 2005, that he'd have easily scored over 400". Does the ability to produce some of those giant bulls make a unit like 13 a great one? I don't think so even though the Pueblo of Acoma sits in that same unit and they take a handfull of giant bulls each year. Unit 13 would probably compare very favorably with some of the Utah units in terms of the number of big bulls it produces each year, between Acoma and the public/private tags. Nobody is going to say it's the best, including me. I've bowhunted unit 15 in New Mexico 6 times, and while it's excellent, I can assure you it isn't "the best".
I'll take some of the Arizona units and reservations any day in a discussion of "BEST". They produce outsized bulls, and generally quite a few of them. If you take the numbers of 350 or 360 and up bulls shot in these units each year, I doubt any place else can keep up with them. And they do produce 390 to over 400 bulls too.
Of course, I'd be thrilled to have a tag in 2007 for any of these places that have been discussed on this thread. THAT would be best, IMHO!