Burned Areas

[Swede]

How or if we hunt them depends on a number of factors. Moonscapes are not good, but I like what is called a "dirty burn". Dirty burns have vegetation left in varying amounts. Often there were hot spots, then large areas are left intact. Forest Service controlled burns are usually in effect dirty burns. They want to reduce the fuel loading, but leave the rest.
After any burn, vegetation comes back soon. This is enhanced by the Forest Service or other agency seeding in very palatable species to minimize erosion and to give the favored species a head start over noxious and other weeds and brush that are hard to control. Elk and deer really like recent burned areas if they have come back with good feed.
Do any of you focus on burns and if so what are you considering a good site?

[saddlesore]

I have ridden thru them. In all honesty,it's too darn dirty for me.Everything gets coated with soot .I go elk hunting to also be in the scenic outdoors and see it to enjoy i.So far,I have never enjoyed being in a burn area.

Three years ago, we had 50,000 acres burn here, 500 homes.It got stopped about 500yards from my place.There are still a lotof blackened spikes ,60-80 ft tall. I don't care to go looking at anymore

[Swede]

Some burns are too hot and too recent for any regrowth. I don't want to hunt in soot and try to avoid dangerous snags hanging over me either. It is hard to find forests with no snags, so you just need to be careful. They are in unburned timber stands too. Let a burn wait an couple of years before you go there. After about four or five years burns peak for quality forage. Hunting old clear-cuts can be similar to burns. Another point on burns is they don't have to be wildfires. Controlled burns are often better.

[Indian Summer]

Yes Saddlesore new burns suck. No way to avoud looking like you've worked in a coal mine all day if you hunt one. Cant lean against trees or even sit down. But the elk are there. The following season it's not so bad. Nothing compares to the Bitterroot fires of 2000. It was insane! The word moonscape is perfect. Some areas the fires were super hot and took out everything for miles in huge areas. No cover. A long long time to regenerate any type of vegetation. But those areas were less than half the picture. Everywhere else was a hunters dream. Grass and browse where previously there was nothing but timber. The ability to see elk bedded or moving across north slopes. What Swede calls dirty burns we refer to as semi-burn. It was our bread and butter. The edges of green timber were rub lines. You could sneak along them while looking out into the open. The elk would bed in the timber and move out in the open to feed. But a really interesting thing I found was that they continued to use the same bedding places handed down through generations even if there were no trees left. They commonly bedded down in the middle of a wide open burn. That tells you that cover isn't the only factor in choosing places to bed.

To this day when I am in an area with good hunting and not too much open areas I think to myself this place could use a forest fire or two. In the long run it's an improvement in elk habitat AND in the huntability of the area. Way more user friendly for us elk hunters.

Look at the grass in this burn! I'd say this young mulie buck got enough to eat!

[Indian Summer]

Burn bulls!

[Indian Summer]

More....

[saddlesore]

In the mid seventies,two big wildfires roared thru an area we hunted. Even today, 50 years later,that area has never recovered in terms of elk hunting.Grazing leases keep it down and aspens replaced the conifers,( which is common). Last time I was in there,they were so thick you could almost not walk thru them. When the fire was being fought, roads were dozed in for equipment access and then later years maintained as forest service roads. This permitted unlimited access which made to much hunting pressure. As a person ages,they don't have 5-6 years to wait .

Killing an elk is not all that important to me anymore that I will subject myself to hunting in that environment. I understand that there are are hunters that will do about anything to punch their tag. More power to them,but it's not me.There are just as many elk to kill in none burn areas.

[Kentrek]

I really like burns....even the moon scapes

Give me pure dirt/ash with little riffs of grass and there be some game

[Indian Summer]

Those little riffs of grass are commonly known as bear grass. The blades are serrated and really rough. Elk and deer do not eat it at all. They do grow a single shoot with a flower at the top and the elk... and my horses love to eat those. But otherwise they are not at all a food source.

[Kentrek]

The only thing bear grass is good for is taking naps on and wiping blood off your hands, i was refering to the fresh grass that the elk do eat and seem to prefer

[Swede]

I have found elk where I hunt will eat Bear grass especially after it gets hit with a frost. The cattle have hammered everything else so that is what is left. I have killed elk late in the archery season and found their paunch full of bear grass. At first it surprised me, and asked an old Range Tech about it. He was the one that said, use increased after the frost. If I remember what I have read correctly Bear grass is used more or less in different areas.

[Sparky]

How do you guys find these old burns? I've used https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/state to look at active fires, but this archive only goes back a year. Is there another resource available?

[Swede]

Sparky, I prefer to wait several (3-4) years before I hunt burns. They are greened up then and have good forage. You can see these old burns on Google Earth. You see the lower vegetation contrasted against the taller trees. You can often see snags sprinkled around. My favorite way to look for burn areas is to get up on a mountainside or peak and look out. Once you know what to look for you can almost always see old burns. Again they are shorter denser vegetation areas that contrast with the areas of taller coarser trees.

Look on GE at 45*39.00N, 115* 34.423W at an eye altitude of 7.600 feet approximate. Then slowly increase your altitude to get a broader view. You can see where the fire went through the area a few years ago. Probably someone here knows the history of the fire. It is not a place I have ever been, and I did not pick it because it is someone's honey hole. In other words, no complaints if you get your bull there every year.

[Sparky]

Thanks Swede. I thought you were screwing with me at first. I laughed when I put the coordinates into google maps and took me to Mongolia. Anyway, I corrected it and can definitely tell it's a burned area that's starting to regrow when I zoom in. It will probably stick out even more on GE

[Swede]

One of the reasons recently burned areas are kind of a magnet for deer and elk is because the vegetation is young and more succulent. I don't understand a lot about how, but the fire fixes nutrients into the soil that the new plants take in. Those nutrients also make the plants more desirable to the animals. The bottom line is that these recent burns may have more critters hanging around them than other places and are worth paying attention to.

[saddlesore]

I suspect the reason the wildlife likes the new succulent plants is the same as domesticatd stock. Turn horses ,mules, or cattle out on belly high grass and they will seek out the short grass down at the bottom.They will go along and crop off the grain on top,but they will not eat the stems or long leaves.
Then they will keep going back to that short grass already cropped off and keep it grazed down, eventually over grazing it while 1-2 ft high grass is left.
That is why farmers /ranchers go out and mow their pastures so the forage is more platable.
There was a photo in the burn of dead deer laying in tall grass saying the deer had lot to eat.Deer do not eat that. They will eat the young tender stuff in spring but generally turn to succulent browse( new shoots) . Elk will eat it after all other forage is consumed or it is the only grass they can paw down to it. Watch the elk forage and you will see their nose down in that clump of grass eating the short stuff at the bottom.

[Swede]

DSCN0142.JPG (269.58 KiB) Viewed 10155 times

This is what I call over grazed. The Range "Conservationists" on the Malheur N.F., where I hunt, must be graduates from the school of the blind. I can show you tens of thousands of acres grazed just like the Meadow in the picture, but the Forest Service says it meets or almost meets standards. The cattle are supposed to be removed when the grass stubble height is still six inches high, but the F.S. does nothing. I understand how cattle forage on a pasture, but still say fire increases palatability and nutrition. The species the F.S. seeds the burn with is a major factor too. I agree that allowing tall grass to go without being grazed creates undesirable woody texture.
Don't worry. On the Malheur N.F. the cattle will eat dry coarse grass stems. They eat that or nothing, as that is all there is left.

[Charina]

How do you guys find these old burns? I've used https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/state to look at active fires, but this archive only goes back a year. Is there another resource available?

Go to http://caltopo.com, hover over MapBuilder Topo on the upper right, select "Fire History".

[Sparky]

I cant believe I haven't been using cal topo until now

[Lefty]

This Idaho site is updated fairly quick. Ive been able to watch one fire grow,.. well the planes havent flown over for the past hour, so maybe it is out, this morning they said it would be out by evening, 26,000 acres.

https://idfg.idaho.gov/ifwis/huntplanner/mapcenter/

[Game Planner Maps]

The Free Game Planner Map Viewer provides an overlay for burns and the year the burn occured. Its real handy for finding those little pockets and with the aerials you can get an idea of what it looks like now.

[Indian Summer]

Boom there you go! I've been buying all my maps from Ed. Customizing them just the way I want and getting them on waterproof paper. Being able to pick layers and add borders for hunting units and private land etc is awesome.