The fires you are all hearing about on the news in Northern Arizona are or were prime elk hunting areas for me in the last 20+ years. It's all gone now. I haven't been up there myself yet, I figure they don't need yet another sight seer up there messing about. I don't know what I'm going to do, it sounds really bad up there. Total burnouts in a lot of places I hear, not your fire hopping kind of fires but a wall of flame wiping out everything in it's path. I was expecting a draw this year for elk. Anyone know if they are going to cancel the hunts in the region? I guess I will call game and fish and try to find out. It looks like I will be hunting out of state for the next decade or so. I only hope it comes back in time to take my kids hunting when they are old enough. It just makes me sick. It was such a beautiful area and it's gone.

Bigbores, I'm really sorry to hear that. I wonder if the elk got out of the area. Surely do hope so. I hunt elk in an area that burned about 5 years ago, and they are doing quite well! I hope it goes like that for you...The area I used to hunt deer in with my Dad and where his ashes were spread at his request, was virtually closed off by the Clinton Forest Plan through the destruction of road systems. So now I can't take my 75 year old mother to his "special place", so we park on a landing about a half mile away...but at least it is still a beautiful place.

It well be hard for the next 3 to 5 years after that when it's starts to green up again the Hunting and game in the area should improve. After fires the browse grows back the game comes.

BigBore, it's coming back pretty quickly here in the Bitterroot after the fires of two years ago. I understand the Montana Rockies are a very different environment than what you find in AZ, but low-level annual fire is a natural and expected part of the game. The elk probably know all about it. Even with major conflagrations, few elk die. Yellowstone had a herd trapped during a fire that killed a bunch but that's the only incident I know of.

That said, the elk populations have been comparatively small here for many years. It seems the fires did little to affect them either way. Hunting the steep burned areas is a bitch, though. And you're right, the beautiful areas aren't so beautiful afterward. Thanks, enviro-kooks!

Redial

Sorry to hear that, bud. We got wiped out in the 2000 fires here in Idaho, and they wouldn't let us back into the area until the day the season started THE NEXT YEAR! Turns out the fire started hopping, at our camp. As a matter of fact, our privvy was burned on one side and not the other......

P dog shooter, not necessarily so. There were some "wall of flame" burns out here in the early nineties I hunted last year. Nothing but grass and standing dead sticks. No cover, for miles, and ergo, no game, for miles. Might get to be good for the sheep and goats in a couple more years. We saw some.

If there are no trees to regenerate from, and no lodgepoles to generate from fire, the ecosystem will be entirely changed for decades, if not centuries. If it is a true "burn to the mineral soil" type of burn, you can, unfortunately, kiss hunting there goodbye for a long time.

We were just very lucky our spot has a bit of cover left, here and there, to regenerate trees from, and to give the elk enough shelter to stay around. With these friggen wolves, they need all the shelter they can find. JMO, Dutch.

That really sucks. I hope that it will come back to some degree in the next 5 years or so. That has been my experience around burns. If as Dutch says it is bourned away it may take a while longer. Hopefully it will be better than ever when it does.

One of my favorite areas burned last summer in a very big fire SE of here... I feel your pain. The West = Fire and Little Water... facts of life. Unfortunately, so many of these burns are avoidable.

BA

Deer and Elk populations boom in clear cut and burned areas. For the last 20 years I sought out burned off areas for hunting. 2-4 years after the burn they start to get really good. 15-20 years they start to get to brushy. But thats hear in Oregon where we get alot of rain in the winter. NE Arizona is tough country, it'll work out fine, and you'll be amazed at how quitely you'll be able to sneak through the woods.

Here's an angle to think about when the fires are finally put out-
We had a big fire in the Eastern part of Oregon last year and the year before that wiped out a huge, but mostly sagebrush, deer and elk hunting area.
The Forest Service was ready to aerial reseed this area with grass seed to stabilize the soil so we got involved (The Oregon Hunters Association). We found out that the seed they wanted to use was a fast growing grass mix, but had almost no animal browse species included in this mix. By discussing this with the area Forest Service biologists, ODFW, and the area ranchers, we were able to convince them to change their seed mix to a grass/meadow mix more palatable to wild game. It will take awhile, but the game should come back better if they have something to sustain them for the near future, as well as some grasses to stabilize the soil to support other growth.
IMHO, it would be a good idea to check into this as soon as the fires are out and the long term planning begins for the recovery effort.
You will be amazed how quickly game will return to a burn area if they have good feed. I try to hunt burned areas as much as I can, especially if they are in their first couple years of green-up. The deer and Elk love all that new green growth. Sometimes I see Elk bedded down in the middle of a huge meadow of grass even during hunting seasons- guess they figure, "why leave the buffet table?"- Sheister

Trust me the elk will now do better than ever, they will increase and food supply will be more..It will take two and if you get some good rains it will be fine next year..the elk will pour into a burn soon as the green sprouts come out...Elk don't normally perish in fire, they simply move out of the country. Fire is every much a part of nature as rain....

Thats some bad news for sure. Small plants and grass is easy to grow, its the timber that takes what seems like a couple lifetimes to replace.

If that is all gone then Elk have no cover and will move on to where there is some but if theres enough cover left then they'll be back.

[ 06-27-2002, 04:38: Message edited by: Wstrnhuntr ]

Some of the best places to find moose in Alaska are in old burned areas, or in the "cat" trails left behind by the fire-fighters. New growth, after 3 to 5 years, is an excellent food source for moose. In fact, sometimes F&G conducts "controlled-burns" of certain areas to create moose habitat.

But I understand that in your case the fires have caused more harm than good. Alaska is a very large place, so a very large fire may consume some portions of forests (not most of it). Later, the game population from the surrounding areas will move into the previously burned areas.

Thanks for the encouragement guys. I feel a little less depressed now. I will wait and see what it looks like with my own eyes before I give up all hope. I just hope I can hunt the area with my kids before I'm too old to make it and keep up with them. All those years of familliarity in that area, we pretty much had the local herds behaviour down pat. 100% success rates for over 10 years. Of course it took 5 or 6 years of hard work to figure it all out to begin with. Sigh. Will have to wait and see, sometimes the media paints the picture darker than reality for drama's sake. It sure was a beautiful area. I used to bring my family up there just to camp in the summer off-season for the scenery and seclusion. I would miss that too, if it's gone. Lots of good times for us there.

Bigbores
I feel your pain I have hunted there since 93 and have really enjoy that area. I have had a lot of good hunting around Porter Mt. I am going to keep my ears open for a deperdation hunt at the end of the year. Maybe the fire has pushed the elk into other areas that will need to be thinned. RNS

I feel for you!!! My dad and I are going on our FIRST elk hunt from October 13-26 outside the Gunnison National Forrest in Colorado. Looks like we may have to cancel!!!

BigBores, I'm here in the PHX area and also hunt up there - I'm bummed because it seems to have burned one or two of the areas managed for "trophy" bulls that I was hoping to draw this year (granted - a real petty, self centered gripe ).

However, to put it in perspective, although this was a big fire, the Mogollon Rim is a huge area and there is a ton of forest up there. This likely is only about 10% or less of that. Devastating yes, but don't worry, unless there is a LOT more burning there is still plenty of good hunting (although I understand the part about it being your "home turf" that you were used to).

Although is may mess up things for the short-term, typically fires are real good in the long-term. Often the problem seems to be that we always rush in to stop fires, thinking we are "saving the forest", but by stopping all of the "smaller" fires that aren't burning incredibly intense, years and years of brush, undergrowth etc accumulate and when a fire like this finally does happen the results are MUCH worse - almost killing the forest vs renewing it. Some of those Sequoias in CA have been around 100s of years and survived through many fires and experts started wondering why then some of them died in recent fires - us being all hyper about quenching every fire and allowing the "fuel" to accumulate in the forest was the cause they argue (makes fires much more intense/deadly when they do occur).

I'm bummed too, but it's likely best in the long run. Gotta feel for the people up there though.

Sheister== What part of Eastern Oregon do you hunt? I have hunted numerous areas for elk and deer. I use to hunt the Snake River unit alot for elk. It's been my experience that the bears come back in large numbers too. They like to root-around in the fallen snags and burnt pole thickets for bugs, etc.

Vinnie,

You name it, I've probably hunted it at one time or another.
Hunted Snake River a couple times- never again on foot, at least from Hat Point that is.
Mostly hunt the Blue Mountains north and south for elk, Heppner for deer, except for this year we drew for Northside unit out of John Day.
Depends on what I'm hunting, but it's always East side for me.- Sheister

parshal and everyone else, check out this site for fire updates around the country: http://www.nifc.gov/

parshal, look closely to this map: http://www.nifc.gov/fireinfo/firemap.html

Gunnison looks like it's close to three of these fires! We have also tried to get in touch with our guide several times to no avail. Evacuated? I pray NOT!!! With You being from CO., I guess you would know better than anyone would. Keep me updated on Western Gunnison if you don't mind!!!

[ 06-28-2002, 08:26: Message edited by: mindcrime ]

The area in eastern Oregon that I grew up hunting deer in burned about 10 years ago. In the last five years the elk numbers have exploded from what they were originally. I would be looking forward to the new growth of vegetation that the elk with gorge themselves on.

I'm sure it'll all be wonderful in 10 years, but our spot was magic before, and 10 years is a LONG TIME!

One thing for you "firemap" watchers, I think there is a tendency for the good folks at the forest service to exaggerate just a "tad" about the burns. More burn, more restoration money. When we finally did get into our area, it was much, MUCH, less severe than I had expected. Areas they had classified as "completely burned" actually showed quite a bit of life. The ones shown as "partially burned" or mostly burned really had nothing more than a ground fire go through them.

What I'm trying to say is "don't despair until you get a chance to go look for yourself". FWIW, Dutch.

Give it about 3-10 years in the Lower-48, and about 3-6 in Alaska, depending on the area. You can "almost " see the plants grow during the summer months up here.

I don't really know about old burns in the Lower-48, so maybe someone else can expand on this. But one thing I know is that moose love low growth they can reach without having to stretch their necks. Willow and birch grow fast, so they move into those burned areas as soon as the plants are ready for eating. Once they move in, wolves and bears will follow, and right behind...I do.

The last good burn in my area was in 1995 and the area that burned had elk,but not large numbers. Since then the elk numbers have went up considerably and the area has some of the best forage of any place around. Within a year of the burn the elk were back in the area and people were killing them and killing more elk then in previous years.

http://www.dnr.state.co.us/news/press.asp?pressid=1978

Looks like they know of two herds of 20 - 30 elk that were killed in the Hayman fire in Colorado. They'll know more once they can go in. From the article, it seems they're more concerned with the aquatic life and that the larger mammals survive just fine. It also mentions that they were quite surprised at how quickly things begin to grow after a fire.