Alpinebullwinkle Report post Posted March 2, 2015 The turkey haven't yet come back to pre-Wallow Fire levels. They probably were the most affected of the game animals as they were nesting when the fire broke out. Mule deer seem to be on the comeback. Hopefully what we are seeing is better offspring and survival rather than just seeing more mulies since half the timber was nuked and sight is better. Coues deer seem to not have been affected below the rim but pushed out of some of their former spots above the rim due to less cover as a consequence of the fire. The elk herd continues its massive decline for many reasons (predation, hunting pressure, fire impact) and is now about 50% of the peak level roughly 1999. The elk took a pretty good beating from the Wallow Fire as that first summer of hiking I stumbled over at least 20 different burned carcasses from the fire. Late gun hunt success rate on the bulls has gone up significantly and a greater number of unclaimed bull carcasses found since the fire presumably due to hunters taking advantage of better cross canyon shooting opportunities due to better sight in the nuked woods. 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ctafoya Report post Posted March 2, 2015 No joke on with the hard hat. During my elk hunt i was on a stalk and a storm rolled in. Trees starting coming down all around us. Scary stuff. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mattys281 Report post Posted March 2, 2015 Here's some Bear Wallow turkeys, up on the rim around the wilderness area. I only hunted there for two days this last August, but both days I had two different flocks move up the hill past me. This is the smaller, at around 14 birds and the other had over 20. Hard to get a real definitive count the way they meandered around, but still pretty good size. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dR2IYTp9lgo 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
