Drought Impacts

[cohunter]

Colorado, especially the Southern and Western halves which also happens to be most of the elk country, is crazy dry. I've been here my whole life and I've never seen anything even close to this. (less than 2 inches of precipitation in our part of the woods since November) I expected short dry grass and some dried up wallows but it appears the largest impact is actually going to be cattle grazing. The grass was looking much better in my area than I expected it to until a couple of weeks ago then the cows moved in. Generally, my favorite areas never see cows - not so this year as ranchers are forced to use parts of their grazing leases they rarely do. There are still 4 weeks until opening day, but this could seriously gum up the works. What are some of the impacts you're seeing or have seen in the past in your area? I know they closed a good portion of the forest in Oregon last fall and the San Juan in Colorado was closed for a while. Many (most?) Colorado counties have a ban on discharging firearms, campfires, welding, chainsaws and smoking outdoors, currently. What are some of your experiences.

[Swede]

I just got back from scouting a couple of forests in Oregon. There are obvious signs of drought, but nothing severe. Yellow jackets and hornets were a pest. The elk seem to be going about the normal routine. I expect the cattle, and influx of hunters to push the elk onto the private land early in the hunting season again.

[saddlesore]

Although it is indeed dry, monsoons have saturated the ground in the last two weeks.
I do remember a drier year.Hay was impossible to find. My wife and I went down to Puelbo Reservoir and went up to the almost the railroad bridge. We walked up the bottom of the Arkansas river.It was maybe 4 inches deep and about 6 foot wide.This was maybe 20 -25 years ago.I have never seen the Arkansas that low since..

I talked to an outfitter friend up near Meeker about a week ago.The high country is holding it's own,but lower is hit bad. All this year, north of Castle Rock got a lot of rain and it was so almost to Cheyenne,then dry again.
I think with the recent rains, it will be spotty.Some wallows will dry up,some won't

[Lefty]

We have had a good spring and early summer in SE Idaho. Should have added some good antler growth. But we are now on day 23 of 90 degrees or warmer.
Fires are really rippin. But so far no added resrictions

[cohunter]

Spotty is right! Along the northern side and the front range things looked pretty good. I happened to be all over the state the last two weeks and the difference is remarkable. The Southeast is ok - dry but ok... but most of the stuff west of the divide and definitely south of I-70 corridor is crazy dry. I could hop across the Crystal River at the fish hatchery. Crawford reservoir is going to be drained for the 1st time since it was built. (water would have otherwise been shut off in early July rather than the typical mid-September. The main road across the Uncompahgre Plateau opened about 2 months early and they've had like 2 good sets of thunderstorms since. The grass in the high country looks shorty but OK two weeks ago, but now it's begun to turn a dark brown color - totally baked. Irrigation water is shorter over here than in the drought of 1973. Our snowpack was 45% of the next lowest year since they began keeping records in 1979. It's dry.

[RAMMONT]

It's been beautiful in my area of SW Montana. Grass is still green and we just had some rain yesterday. Temperatures are in the 70's most days with a few days in the 80's. Far better weather this year than last year but then we had the hardest winter in several decades, 140+ inches of snow around my house, our last snow storm was in June.

[dotman]

Going to be an interesting year in SW CO, bet we hear a ton of stories that the rut is running late. I think we’ll see more animals up high depending on how the late season grasses are are. Watching the radar it looks like the monsoons are hitting really well where I’ll be hunting but radar isn’t always accurate.