I'm not sure I agree that the elk are terribly tough to hunt. Perhaps it has changed in the last few years. I'm AHE and have hunted it a total of 2 days, so I may not have the most knowledge. However, the elk appeared to be localized (not evenly distributed). That said, in those 2 days I saw 30ish elk and killed a cow. If you look at the harvest reports, they do kill some big bulls there.