Cliff Creek Fire

[TheDudeAbides]

http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/4865/

http://wildfiretoday.com/tag/cliff-creek-fire/

I was up in this area in May, looking for a black bear and I am a little skeptical about returning to the area to hunt Mule Deer / Black Bear in the fall.

Do wildfires push deer and bears miles away from the Burn areas?

Do wildfires simply displace the deer and bears in the area or do they concentrate the game into the surrounding areas?

I have hunted burn areas a year or two after the burn, but never on the year of the burn.

I am just curious of the affects of a fire like this one to the hunting of the fall.

 

[BuzzH]

Stay out...nothing comes back for 10 years after a burn, including vegetation.

Dad shot this moose in the black of the fontenelle fire the year of the burn, probably a month and half after the fire. Aspen were already 12-18 inches tall.

I drew a LQ elk tag that year, but if I would have had a general tag, I would have pounded a real nice 6 point bull that was miles from a green tree, right in the middle of the black.

 

[Gr8bawana]

I have seen deer rolling in the ashes of a fire just a few weeks after the fire was put out. I was told they like to do that because of the ticks all over them and they do have a lot of ticks here in NV. I don't know if that's true or not but the deer were in there long before anything even started to grow back.

 

[hank4elk]

I have seen bucks go right thru the flames to get to burned areas,not just escaping the fire.
And roll in ashes with smoke still rising.
If it's not burned to moonscape it's usually good to get covered in black. The new sprouts are prime food for deer & elk.
Only trouble I have with them is the nasty blow downs & hazzards. A pain to walk quietly thru.
And they can get choked with new growth a few years later,making it hard to see game in places.
I'm hunting a burn this year.

 

[Oak]

Here are a couple of photos from a fire that is currently burning on the CO/WY state line (Beaver Creek Fire) that might give you a better perspective. The first one is a good example of how fires often burn in a mosaic, so that there is still plenty of cover. The second shows the new growth in the burn a few days after the fire went through. Yum.

 

[TheDudeAbides]

Thank you for the responses and information.