She Drew a Montana Bull Elk Tag — Then Discovered Most of the Unit Was Private Land

Drawing a Montana elk tag feels like winning the lottery. Drawing a bull elk tag in a quality unit? That’s a different level of excitement — the kind that has you pulling up OnX at midnight and dreaming about velvet. But there’s a gut-punch scenario every Montana hunter dreads: you pull that once-in-a-career tag, zoom into the unit map, and realize the vast majority of it is locked up in private land. That’s exactly the situation Keren found herself in, and the way she navigated it makes for one of the more compelling elk hunting stories you’ll see this season.

This is a story that hits close to home for a lot of Montana hunters. Access has become one of the defining issues of the modern elk hunting era here — and it’s only gotten harder. Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks has made real efforts to bridge the gap through programs like Block Management, which opens hundreds of thousands of private acres to public hunters each fall at no cost. But Block Management isn’t a magic fix. Parcels can be small, pressure can be high, and elk are smart enough to figure out where the sanctuary is. Hunting a unit where the elk spend most of their time on ground you can’t legally access is a mental and physical chess match that wears on even experienced hunters. For someone chasing her biggest bull, the stakes are even higher.

What makes Steven Drake’s channel worth following is that he doesn’t sugarcoat the grind. Montana elk hunting is hard, and hunting bulls on limited public ground in a private-heavy unit is a specific kind of hard that most out-of-state hunting content glosses over. The access puzzle Keren faces here — working small parcels, likely dealing with elk that bed and feed on private and only occasionally drift onto huntable ground — is the same puzzle thousands of Montanans and nonresident tag holders deal with every September and October. The strategies that work in this situation are real-world applicable, whether you’re hunting the Missouri Breaks, the Bitterroot, or somewhere in between.

Whether she tagged out or not, we’re not going to spoil it — but the title does give you some reason for optimism. Hit play and watch how persistence, smart scouting, and a willingness to grind small pieces of ground can pay off when a big bull tag is on the line. If you’ve ever stared at a unit map and felt that sinking feeling about the pink and yellow parcels crowding out the green, this one’s for you.