Found this link share by Steven Rinella on Facebook. Thought it might be good to post here.

http://www.rmef.org/TheHunt/Before/PlanforGrand.aspx

Step 1. Hunt literally anything else.
Step 2. Doesn't matter as long as you follow Step 1.

He's assuming you have the gear you need to make it work (clothing, packs, camp, etc). Having just done this as inexpensively as I could the cost was more than double. It would get cheaper every year, but the typical Texas hunters doesn't have the clothing or pack to make that work.

Sean98 said:

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Step 1. Don't suck at hunting.
Step 2. Doesn't matter as long as you follow Step 1.

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FIFY

I'm assuming cow hunts are much less than bull hunts?

Edit to add:
This makes it sound so easy: http://www.rmef.org/TheHunt/Before/PlanforGrand.aspx

About three years ago, I went on a week-long elk hunt in Colorado on public land. Cost me probably a hair under $1k.

Didn't see a *******ed thing. Not even a squirrel. Glorified camping trip.

I will gladly plan one for you. I'll send you my info on how to get me the $1000

He's dated on the cost of the Colorado OTC tag, it's $645 or 675 (can't remember which). Even my cheap a-- decided to spend some money. Now in fairness, I knew this hunt was coming and had been piecing together stuff spread over 3 years. We were coming from California, Texas (me), and Pennsylvania. California and I drove ourselves to Colorado. Pennsylvania cousin makes way more than the other two of us, he flew (I think his rifle/scope was worth more than the hunt expenses of me and California cousin combined...not kidding). I think I racked up about $325 in gas in the Honda Ridgeline. We each bought about $125 worth of food in one manner or another. We used an outfitter drop camp (tent and stove) for $75/night (so $25 for what ended up being 7 nights). Then we had the fees for horses. Call it effectively $250/horse (roundtrip)--4 ridden horses (wrangler's horse too)+2 pack horses for gear (we weeded down pretty good after watching the fiasco the Atlanta crew caused)+1 horse to bring my boned out elk down. Even though all they did was pack us in, and pack us out, we REALLY liked the wranglers and tipped them extremely well. I think AgLA06 will attest they were good guys.

Initially, our goal was to go all out cheap as we could get it. After my dad died in February, we were steadfast this hunt was going to happen. I had been researching 3 units very heavily for a couple years, included Unit 24. Turns out one of my co-workers had used this outfit several years before, and suggested I check them out. After talking with my cousins, it was a very reasonable cost to get us into an amazing wilderness area. In one week we saw a grand total of 3 orange dots, and they were a mile plus away. We saw elk everyday until we believe the winter migration forced them down (I'm a pretty decent tracker and sign specialist, and I mean they literally disappeared over night). I believe AgLA06 was still seeing them down in his area. I knew where the migration route was (about 3 miles sw of our camp), but I'm not going to lie, we were so physically beat from packing my elk back to camp, we didn't feel like making that particular hike.

I wouldn't trade that experience for anything right now. Now I am researching pronghorns for 2019 or 2020.

Every winter an elk herd comes down from higher up and hangs out in my neighborhood every night. They came back last night for the first time this year and bedded down in the yards on my street. Woke up this morning with four cows in my backyard. I think the HOA would frown on some back porch hunting though.

Came here to say "don't invite sean", but he already posted in this thread.

I read this same thing last night after Rinella posted it. It sent me down a wormhole of elk hunting youtube videos by Randy Newman. He has a lot of good info out there on public elk hunting. Not just techniques but dissects the tag drawing process.

If you throw out the cost of a tag then $1000 is probably doable for someone who has a fair amount of gear already and isn't looking to overhaul their whole kit for a week in the mountains.

I hunted public land as a resident for the first time this year in Wyoming. Here is a rough summary of what I spent:

Clothes: $200
Food: $100
onX GPS map: $100
Gas: $100
Tag: $58
New Pack: $300
Ammo: $35

So I came in around $900. Next year that should drop to around $400-500 since I won't be needing another pack or as many clothes. New gear is nice and in some cases it might be essential, but you can get by with a lot less than you think. Of course, I didn't shoot a bull this year so maybe I do need more stuff!

It's also a function of how long you stay. On average we are in the two week range. This year two of the normal four had to back out the last week.

Since I'm staying in a nice cabin I insisted on buying all the food.

Food and drinks....approximately $500
Diesel.....$300
License...$650
one night in Gunnison...$100
Damn ATV sticker....$35

so $1600 or so for me minimum...

http://www.themeateater.com/2016/gearing-up-on-a-budget/