Phillips County News - One Nation, Under God

The drawing for special elk permits has come and gone, and for the first time in memory I didn’t care.

Filling out an application for a special tag was something I used to do every spring without fail. It increased my odds of killing an elk, and guaranteed I‘d have an elk license in my pocket come fall, a general elk license being the prerequisite for the drawing.

I loved to hunt elk. Over the years I managed to kill 20, evenly divided between cows and bulls. Whether I drew a special tag or not didn’t matter, but I always sought the advantage it provided.

Mailing the application was a...