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Hunting an old burn

Since I started hunting elk, I have always wanted to hunt a burn. This year, I am going to finally make that happen. I was curious of how elk use a burn area from others experience. I was wondering if elk just feed in the burns then go back into timber early morning to bed or will they sometimes bed in the burn if they find adequate bedding areas. The area has four drainages with one being the burn. Each drainage is about 1000 ft vertical to ridge with the burn going all the way up the to the ridge with nice timber on other side. It looks miserable to navigate as a human with all the burned trees fallen already and looks to be some new growth timber but still kinda sparse(all google earth scouting) My first day plan is to hike in the dark at least a mile up the timbered drainage adjacent the burn, then at first light start hunting my way up to the ridge where i can glass the burn and see what I find.

I guess that depends what's left after the burn as far as cover goes, and what's now growing new in the burn.

I've never seen them bed in a burned area, but I'll never forget the herd I trailed thru a burn area a few years back. Every cow had a mouthful of new oak brush leaves in their mouths, just chewing and walking, moving to bed area.

I let a 5x5 walk that morning, that was a good day.

Be careful about 5 years into a burned area, the trees have now been dead and are rotting, easily blown down. That's some scary stuff, hearing the trees snapping around you!

Good luck on your hunt.

I've seen them bed in a burn, but usually they will go to some dark timber to bed. Look for burn edges that are adjacent to north facing timber and focus on those.

Agreed on the blowdown, it can be pretty spooky. Expect a lot of trees to come down after a significant precipitation event.

I've spent a lifetime hunting burns. Big ones and smaller or spotty ones. At first we would say what a shame all that beautiful stuff going up in flames. These days we get into some areas and say this place could use a good forest fire. I have tons of pictures of dead bulls in burns. Black trees and yellow grass.

I've seen elk bed in burns a lot. One thing for sure is when you look into a burn, especially if there's snow on the ground, you think you can see everything. But if you spend some time at it you'll learn pretty quick that you can't.

Like antelope country there is way more than meets the eye.

Another thing for certain is that if there are places where elk have bedded for generations they will still bed there if the place suits the weather conditions. Yes... in the so called wide open.

You'll find rub lines along the edges of green timber where it meets the burn. And there will definitely be elk that bed in patches of unburned stuff that is surrounded by or near burns.

It doesn't take long after the fire for things to start settling in either. There is a certain type of mushroom that pops up in burns before anything else. I've seen the elk go right back in there and leave tracks from shroom to shroom when there was nothing else but ashes. Burns kick butt. More shooting lanes right!

I agree with mule power. Elk love those burns. I swear the burn must make the grass taste sweeter or more nutritious because they definitely prefer it.

I hunted a burn a couple of yrs ago and the elk were all over that burn country. Pictured, my decoy setup that I called a big herd bull and his cows in to. Fire came through appx 2 or 3 yrs prior.

Beendare, it does make the grass and forbs more appealing because the right kind of burn returns nutrients to the soil. Wildlife magnet.

The big super-hot fires in areas that haven't burned for 100+ years, like we had around here in NoCo a couple years ago, can literally sterilize the soil. That's not so good.

Fire releases fixed nitrogen in soil. That is why the explosion of growth occurring, following a new burn, is preferred.

I read a thread here a couple weeks ago by a guy saying it ruins ecosystems for smaller animals in Kansas. Bull crap. I bit my tongue because I didn't point out that it creates those same ecosystems that were endangered by clean farming practices and, over mature forests.

God Bless men

Jaquomo,

It's really interesting to see the effects of topography on fire behavior and what the after effects are.

I have hunted a burn in the Bob Marshall that occurred in 1988. The western slopes and ridgetops where it ripped through incredibly fast have regenerated well. The eastern facing slopes where it burned downhill, much slower and much hotter, are still very much grass with only very small trees.

I realize some of this is dependent upon tree species that are regenerating (lodgepole vs. Douglas fir, etc) but it has always fascinated me when I look at the differences.

Thanks for the input. Like I said, almost all burned trees have fallen already and there is some new growth. There are a few small pockets of timber where I will be looking to see if thats where any elk are bedding. Thanks Mule power for the thoughts on glassing, I will glass longer thinking about what you said. My plan is to work the fringes of burn, glassing it for most the day and looking for sign on the fringes. It is pretty remote so shouldn't have too much pressure hopefully.

Burns are one of my favorite area's to hunt.

Not a lot of cover but the new growth grasses/plants/trees are like a magnet to wildlife for feeding.

Good luck, Robb

If you live in western ID that's about all you will hunt here! We have major burns every year where 100's of thousands of acres burn yearly due to lightning fires. If the burn isn't devastating elk can return that following year, if it is super hot the fires will destroy about everything for years with little to no growth.

We have fires here so hot that even after 6'-8' of snow sits on the ground for months & melts off that there are still smoldering root pockets all over the woods, this is not unusual.

With that said, yes watch for falling trees even during your hunt on windy days. A fire can leave blackened tooth picks everywhere & they do little to block the wind. Negotiating this type of downfall gets old real quick with most hunters.

No question once a year or two goes by nice young shoots of grasses start to return & it can be like a smorgasbord out there for all animals. I see elk bed in these areas where enough cover & water is sufficient. Our favorite spots are where standing green pockets of timber meet these burns no matter what side of the mountain they are on.

Locating elk through Bugling while still dark before morning in burn areas is a very quick way to locate them & where they may be. This can give you a heads up on how & where to slip in on them before they can see you in the now more open country.

We've glassed the areas as well from vantage points with success, we generally will save this for evenings as elk work out of their bedding areas into these burn areas to feed at night. This can offer good starting points for a mornings hunt.

ElkNut1

I agree with the comments above. Some of my favorite areas to hunt are old burns. It's all situational and depends on the area, but here are a few things I've observed:

Burns can be very difficult to negotiate because of the blowdowns. Finding good routes in and out, or places where you can hunt the perimeters is key. It can take several seasons to figure out how to hunt a burn efficiently because of the difficulty of travel. Find the game trails.

Some of my best opportunities have been early mornings when they are out feeding in an open burn. I've noticed that they eventually work their way into the timber to bed. If possible, hunting the perimeter of the burn and getting between the elk and their bedding area at daylight can be effective.

I've also spent some long, hot afternoons near burns just waiting and that's led to some opportunities. If the wind makes it possible, I've set up near the perimeter where they've gone to bed and waited for the afternoon stretch. If that bull fires off an afternoon bugle from his bedding area, it can be a good time to draw him out.

Be safe! Moving in and around a burn can be really tough and is an easy place to hurt yourself.

The first burn I hunted was essentially sterile like Jaq mentioned. Black powder for soil. You couldn't go 10' without crossing an Elk track. Seemed odd to me that they liked it so much. A few years ago I hunted the same burn as Beendare and because that state aerial seeds and has a monsoon season, the barley was well established. Elk everywhere. The Elk would bed in small sections where the burn had killed the needles on the trees but didn't burns them off. I would say an area 50 yards by 50 yards, not very big. I wore camo short pants and a pair of black base layer leggings.

But remember that they can also be nowhere near the burn, as was the case here. It doesn't matter how bad we want the elk to be in a given spot. If they don't want to be there or if they got blown out even 1 minute before you got there, then they're going to be somewhere else.

Arrowed this bull in an old burn. He was in there with 3 other bulls, rut crazed !! All of them were so into screaming and running around they never saw me slip in on them.

"Excellent"

Don't over look logged areas too.

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