It’s Official: New World-Record Elk Taken in Montana
OutdoorHub Reporters 01.12.17
Coming just days after a new whitetail world record was announced, the Boone and Crockett Club and Pope and Young Club announced that a bull from Montana taken on public land during the 2016 bow season would become the new archery world record American elk.
After the mandatory 60-day drying period ended, the massive elk antlers upheld all the hype. The elk’s official entry score was confirmed at an astounding 430 inches. In comparison, the current B&C world record taken with a rifle scores 442-5/8 inches.
The bull was taken back in September by Steve Felix, who is a resident of Montana and shot the elk while on a solo bowhunt early in the Montana archery season.
“History was made right here in Montana,” said Justin Spring, Boone and Crockett Club’s director of Big Game Records. This is the fourth-largest bull in our records, which date back to before 1900, the largest since 1968, and the largest from the state of Montana.”
The last step in the process, in order to obtain an official score for Pope and Young Club world record status, is to have the antlers panel scored by a group of highly qualified P&Y and B&C measurers. This will take place just prior to Pope and Young Club’s Biennial Convention and Big Game Awards Ceremony April 5-8, 2017, in St. Louis, Missouri, where this exceptional animal will be displayed and honored.
This big Montana bull will hurdle over the current archery world record elk, which scored 412-1/8 inches, and was taken in Arizona in 2005.
“We’re excited, not only for the health of our elk populations and bowhunting, but to be able to share this outstanding specimen with the public for the first time at our biennial convention,” explained Joe Bell, executive director for the Pope and Young Club.
Both organizations point to the fact that a free-ranging elk of this size, living a long life on good habitat, is just one more indicator that wildlife conservation and management is working well.
