Elk vs. Lion Hunting

bonepiler · Nov 21, 2006

Lion Hunting:

It is against Utah state law for a houndsman to cut a lion track, release the hounds, tree the cat, and then call in the hunter to come kill it. The hunter has to be on site when the hounds are released. Seems pretty fair to me.

Elk hunting on the other hand:

An elk hunting guide pays people to go find an big elk for a client. Once the guides find the elk, they surround him for several days with 10-15 guys. Typically, a fat cat hunter arrives at 11:00 P.M the night before the hunt, kills the elk the next morning, and is back on the airplane before the next day.

Is this a double standard? Shouldn't the elk guide wait to release his hounds (AKA guides) until the shooter arrives??? How is surrounding an elk with 10-15 guides and then calling the "shooter" any different than treeing a lion? It seems like a double standard to me.

Any thoughts?

Roy · Nov 21, 2006

I agree - there sure were a lot of 400+ bulls killed in Utah this year - how many of them were like this? It makes you wonder. However - proving it may be something altogether different. Are the agents of the guide within the site of the elk at all times (even if there is only one at a time)? Are they in radio contact with one another, or are they just "guys on the mountain" who are supposedly "unknowingly" confining the elk to a centralized area? Are they on private property? Are they preventing other hunters from pursuing the bull fairly? I could hear the lawyers (paid for by the fat cat no doubt)now.

UTROY
Proverbs 21:19 (why I hunt!)

peakfreak · Nov 21, 2006

First off you're comparing apples and oranges. Finding a bull is like cutting a track, not having a lion in a tree. Lion guides can go scout for tracks all day just like elk guides can scout the hills all day with no hunter present. What does the hunter pulling in at 11pm and leaving on a plane after the kill have to do with this subject? I guess if we treed elk I would agree with you 100%, but the fact is you still have to hunt the bull and he has a much better chance of getting away than a lion does in a tree.
I'm jealous too that I can't get a tag and afford to hire a guide service to find me the biggest bull on the mountain. You're basicly saying nobody can scout for elk unless you have a tag in their pocket. Think about that for a minute. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

peakfreak · Nov 21, 2006

I can see it now. I'm riding down the Piute Trail when I spot a herd of elk feeding on a hillside so I stop to look at them. Then the Fish and Game pulls up and asks to see my elk license. I say I don't have one and so they write me up a huge ticket.LOL thats funny.

HoundDawgJr · Nov 21, 2006

I once asked the Wildlife Board this very question.

They told me, "Well it's common knowledge that even the very dumbest hound guy is still ten times smarter than the smartest elk hunter so we have to cut the elk hunters some slack."

Hey, don't kill the messenger, I'm just repeating what the DWR said. ;-)

NMHUNTNUTT1 · Nov 21, 2006

Yeah I could see the double standard there, but the above post is pretty damn funny too , maybe some truth to it eh...

Ropinfool · Nov 21, 2006

Kinda a separate issue I guess, but I don't see what satisfaction anybody gets from being guided right to an animal and all they have to do is pull the trigger. I realize not all guided hunts are like this, but most are. I get more satisfaction finding a little one on my own than being guided to a record book animal.

B_F_E · Nov 21, 2006

Interesting HoundDawgJr, Cause I was speaking with the DWR about how hound dog people usually are missing a lot of their teeth & they told me that even the elk hunters with the most amount of their teeth missing, still had more teeth than 90% of the hounddog crowd.
Made me wonder how the DRW researches these things ;-)

HoundDawgJr · Nov 21, 2006

BFE,

I won't deny that hound guys rarely have a full set of pearly whites. In fact, if they do they are probably just pretend hound guys anyway.

Hound guys don't have a full set of morals either, but I've been getting by just fine without either for a lot of years.

I guess a guy just needs to decide which he wants more... brains or teeth. I once had a girlfriend that had NEITHER. She was as close to perfect as I've ever seen a woman. Only flaw I ever found was she had vocal chords. ;-)

Of course who are we kidding? If either of us is listening to anything the DWR says then we got way bigger problems than missing teeth or a single digit IQ.

B_F_E · Nov 21, 2006

Touch? Dawg,
Luckily for me I'm a Mule deer guy so I don't have to choose between the two.
As such I can enjoy a triple digit I.Q. while still being able to eat corn on the cob.
Nevertheless that old girlfriend of yours sounds quite appealing, can you forward any contact info for her ?
I wonder what the DWR would have to say about that girl

bonepiler · Nov 22, 2006

Isn't surrounding an elk with 10-15 guys for a week kind of like "treeing" the elk? The lion can jump the tree if it wants. Sure, the hounds will probably just tree it again, just like the 10-15 elk guides will follow the elk around. The elk is probably not getting away in most of these cases. I am not saying anything can be done about it legally, just looks like a double standard.