Alan Klassen is all smiles when he recalls his successful hunt in late September for what turns out to be an elk for the record books.

"I have spent quite a bit of time over the years looking at them, watching the elk,” Klassen said in an interview this week. "So when I got the permit, I was pretty pumped, pretty jacked.

"It's one in a lifetime, that is what it is, exactly what it is, and we do have world-class elk here.”

Klassen's elk has been scored by two local men who are qualified to score trophies for the Boone and Crockett Record Book. Both have scored the antlers above 400, well beyond the minimum 385 required to get into the book.

The antlers will be scored again after the 60-day drying period to confirm their eligibility.

As a veteran big game guide and hunter of many years, the Burma Road resident hasn't been much for record-book notoriety. In this case, however, he says wants to do it for the Yukon.

It was early on the morning of Sept. 25 when Klassen, Paul Dueling, Deuling's seven-year-old grandson and Bernard Briggs began the hunt.

As soon as daylight broke, they could hear bugling off in the distance in the rolling river plain east of the Takhini Bridge, between the Alaska Highway and the Takhini River.

"So I chirped on the cow call, and we actually called out two small bulls,” says Klassen. "We could still hear this big bull off in the distance, and he came in fast.

"He came in just for a second, and I didn't have had a chance to shoot.

As soon as the big bull caught sight of the hunt party, he turned and high-tailed into the willows, but stopped about 25 metres away.

Klassen could still see him standing behind the bush, but not well enough for a safe shot.

"We just went after him, real slow,” he says. "He would bugle, and I would chirp on the cow call, but he was moving away.”

It took the quartet a couple of hours of stalking before they drew the bull into a meadow area where a clear shot could be taken, and Klassen took it, followed by a second insurance shot.

"As we walked up to him, he just kept getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger,” he recalls. "I have guided a lot of sheep and caribou hunts over the years, but wow, this was exciting.

"And it was cool to have friends out there to share it with, and that young lad I am sure will have a story to share for the rest of his life, for sure.”

Admittedly, Klassen was looking for a trophy set of antlers, and was prepared to spend the time hunting for them.

But he also has a freezer full of meat, as it's estimated the bull weighed somewhere around 454 kilograms (1,000 pounds).

"That's all I have been eating,” he says. "I made a bunch of burger, but the rest is steaks and roasts. I have had a bit of elk. I haven't eaten it a lot, but it is right up there with sheep.”

As of this morning, Klassen's bull was one of 11 elk harvested since the first-ever permit hunt began Sept. 1.

Environment Yukon is hoping to use the harvest to reduce the populations of the Takhini and Braeburn herds to more desirable levels.

Elk are not indigenous to the Yukon. They were first transplanted here going back to the 1950s, and again in the 1980s to expand wildlife viewing opportunities and big-game hunting options.

Adding to concerns in recent years over conflicts between farmers and the growing number of wild elk getting in their fields was the widespread presence of winter ticks detected on the elk three years ago.

While ticks are normally not deadly for elk, they can be devastating for local moose and caribou populations if they make the jump, though there is no evidence so far that they have.

Environment Yukon has undertaken a capture program for the larger Takhini herd over the last two years, and over the last year for the Braeburn herd, to help break the back of the winter tick by penning the animals and intercepting the larvae before they spread to the wild.

The result, however, has been a higher calf survival rate with no predation on the newborn calves, and a much quicker climb in the population numbers.

Management biologist Rick Ward estimates the Takhini herd sits at about 250 animals, or 75 above the desired population.

The Braeburn herd is sitting somewhere around 90 elk, or 10 above the desired population, Ward explained this morning.

Of the 11 elk harvested so far, seven bulls and two cows have come from the Takhini herd, one bull has been harvested from the Braeburn herd, and another bull has been taken outside the regular range of both herds, known as the exclusion zone.

There were 1,211 Yukoners who applied for the 50 permits available in the August lottery – 44 permits for the Takhini herd and six for the Braeburn herd.

All Yukon hunters, however, are able to buy a tag and get a permit to hunt elk outside the common range of both herds, in the exclusion zone.