Few things humble a man like public land elk hunting. You can spend all year shooting your bow, studying maps, watching videos, and convincing yourself you've got elk figured out. Then opening morning rolls around, and they make you look completely incompetent. The mountains are steep. Deadfall sucks. The weather changes by the hour, and elk are good at avoiding things that want to kill them. If you look at harvest statistics across the West, the story is pretty clear.