Open question for picketpin.
- Thread starter Mtneer
- Start date
picketpin
Buckeye
Thanks for the concern. We are actually up at the family cabin between Lowman and Grandjean for the year. The wife broke her back in a wreck in April. The 5 hours drive each way from/to the ranch was out. Especially when they wanted to see her weekly. Dad bought this cabin in about 1956 so we'd have a place to hunt elk, kayak and learn to fly fish. It's been tied up in mom and dad's estate for 4 years. I made a deal with the siblings and relinquished part of my share for the cabin. Fun when we were kids but a poor house to live in 24/7/365. WE actually have it sold and close on a nother house/cabin between Ola and High Valley up on the Gem County, Valley county line. If you follow FS RD 644 to the summit and turn south, our new one is the one with the blue roof. ;-) It's also off grid in heavy timbe.
Back to the ranch. The big fire in Owyhee County was quite a bit west of us, 70 miles or so and most of it was way up north near the Snake River, so 90 north of us. Cousin Wayne says they have a LOT of smke and ash in the air. Burned up a few (23) feral horses and some wildlife but not too bad. BUT it was right at 2000,000 acres total and it'll take a long time to recover.
The high desert out at the ranch is DRY!!! Wayne took a trip I'd have usually taken and a lot of the springs that seldom go dry were in fact just mud puddles. Jack Creek Basin is pretty dry but there's enough water that the deer and antelope should be okay. WE took the cows out of there 08-01-15.
The big spring over at the Montesario is down a little but still looks like its running 200-300 gallons a minute and the meadow is still green so we left cows on it.
The spring at the main ranch is still flowing and the windmill is irrigating about 120 acres of hay so it could be a lot worse.
We do the final inspection on the "New Place 24th and then Wayne and I are headed back to the ranch for a couple of weeks to start getting things lined out for fall-winter.
The bad thing out here is if lightning strikes and it happens to burn up the graze you lease from BLM, your done. My Cousin David lost about 32,000 acres of his BLM AMUs 2 years ago. That's how long for him to go broke and sell out. No way he could afford to pay $1.50 a day per head and truck his herd up to Fairfield and back. He sold out to the Menonites. I have AMUs for 40,00 acres. I MIGHT survivbe losing some of it but we'd sure have to cut herd size and re-jigger how we operate.
For now, safe and sound and life continues.
Thanks again for asking
Ross
Back to the ranch. The big fire in Owyhee County was quite a bit west of us, 70 miles or so and most of it was way up north near the Snake River, so 90 north of us. Cousin Wayne says they have a LOT of smke and ash in the air. Burned up a few (23) feral horses and some wildlife but not too bad. BUT it was right at 2000,000 acres total and it'll take a long time to recover.
The high desert out at the ranch is DRY!!! Wayne took a trip I'd have usually taken and a lot of the springs that seldom go dry were in fact just mud puddles. Jack Creek Basin is pretty dry but there's enough water that the deer and antelope should be okay. WE took the cows out of there 08-01-15.
The big spring over at the Montesario is down a little but still looks like its running 200-300 gallons a minute and the meadow is still green so we left cows on it.
The spring at the main ranch is still flowing and the windmill is irrigating about 120 acres of hay so it could be a lot worse.
We do the final inspection on the "New Place 24th and then Wayne and I are headed back to the ranch for a couple of weeks to start getting things lined out for fall-winter.
The bad thing out here is if lightning strikes and it happens to burn up the graze you lease from BLM, your done. My Cousin David lost about 32,000 acres of his BLM AMUs 2 years ago. That's how long for him to go broke and sell out. No way he could afford to pay $1.50 a day per head and truck his herd up to Fairfield and back. He sold out to the Menonites. I have AMUs for 40,00 acres. I MIGHT survivbe losing some of it but we'd sure have to cut herd size and re-jigger how we operate.
For now, safe and sound and life continues.
Thanks again for asking
Ross
wunbe
Buckeye
Ross,
Hope your wife is mending well. You guys sure have had bad luck in the medical arena over the years.
Are there black timber elk in your new backyard?
wunbe
Hope your wife is mending well. You guys sure have had bad luck in the medical arena over the years.
Are there black timber elk in your new backyard?
wunbe
picketpin
Buckeye
YES: We are in the SAWTOOTH zone. Wayne and I got smart and went on the computer at midnight and got tags. They were sold out by 9:30am. We are just south of the South Fork of the Payette. The mountains behind here are steep as all get out. When we were kids we'd just leave the cabin, get in the bottom of 8 Mile Creek or 10 Mile Creek and head UP. I've nevr actually been to the ridge line as we almost always killed our bulls as we climbed. Alot of the stuff above us burned in the late 50s. Down here at the cabin it's that Ponderosa ecosystem with huge trees and large park lands. Not a lot of elk. On the north facing slopes behind us it's a thicket of new growth, dead growth and every bush known to man. IThe neighbor keeps trail cams out and about 3 weeks ago all the big bucks and bulls disapeared. Headed to the high country til snow flys.
Cousin Wayne and I did a lot of looking and scouting since April. THIS year with one of us in his 70s and the other pushing it hard, we've changed tactics. After studying a lot of maps and talking to a lot of guys we are headed UP. You can go up the FS road on Archie Creek and get all the way to the top ridge line. The road actually runs the ridge for miles and then rops south and ends in Idaho City.
The plan. Go to the ridge line, park the truck and hunt down the ridges all the way to the cabin each day
It's about 5-6 miles predicate on which ridge you take. Figure we'll hunt so we can look down into the west facing slopes that tend to be more open and across and into the BLACK stuff on the opposite, east facing slopes. Deer and elk are open here at the same time. So take the boomers and see what happens. Waynes taking his 7STW I was going to take my 338 #1S but did load some of the new Nosler Accubond LRs at 142 grains with a BC at .719. Wayne coing up for a few days and we'll get the rifle thing sorted out.
IF we killanything we can't get to on the logging roads, they only run about 1/2 way to the summit,we'll call Billy at the ranch and he'll bring up his saddle horse and th mules and pack "IT" out.
All thos planning gets trickier the older you get. Geez in our teens it was eat breakfast in the dark, grab your rifle, some ammo and a few candy bars and be gone till way after dark.
Now, it's months of planning. A truck on the ridge to retreat to with everything in it and a canopy to get out of the rain/snow. Day packs with food, water and shelters. The good part is that as we will be hunting line of sight down to the cabin the little CB hand helds with the 12 mile range hit the cabin just fine so if we have a worse case disaster, Mary Alice can call for help.
Getting old sure changes the scenario. ;-)
Ross
Cousin Wayne and I did a lot of looking and scouting since April. THIS year with one of us in his 70s and the other pushing it hard, we've changed tactics. After studying a lot of maps and talking to a lot of guys we are headed UP. You can go up the FS road on Archie Creek and get all the way to the top ridge line. The road actually runs the ridge for miles and then rops south and ends in Idaho City.
The plan. Go to the ridge line, park the truck and hunt down the ridges all the way to the cabin each day
It's about 5-6 miles predicate on which ridge you take. Figure we'll hunt so we can look down into the west facing slopes that tend to be more open and across and into the BLACK stuff on the opposite, east facing slopes. Deer and elk are open here at the same time. So take the boomers and see what happens. Waynes taking his 7STW I was going to take my 338 #1S but did load some of the new Nosler Accubond LRs at 142 grains with a BC at .719. Wayne coing up for a few days and we'll get the rifle thing sorted out.
IF we killanything we can't get to on the logging roads, they only run about 1/2 way to the summit,we'll call Billy at the ranch and he'll bring up his saddle horse and th mules and pack "IT" out.
All thos planning gets trickier the older you get. Geez in our teens it was eat breakfast in the dark, grab your rifle, some ammo and a few candy bars and be gone till way after dark.
Now, it's months of planning. A truck on the ridge to retreat to with everything in it and a canopy to get out of the rain/snow. Day packs with food, water and shelters. The good part is that as we will be hunting line of sight down to the cabin the little CB hand helds with the 12 mile range hit the cabin just fine so if we have a worse case disaster, Mary Alice can call for help.
Getting old sure changes the scenario. ;-)
Ross
Ross, glad to hear you are safe. Hope your wife is doing better. Good luck on your hunt.
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Glad to hear you're okay Ross. I'm sorry about your wife though. I hope she heals soon.
Yep, the smoke's bad enough clear over here on the eastern side of Idaho to cause my wife and me sore throats. I can't imagine how much worse it is over on the west side of the state. I guess it's pretty bad all over the western US. Heck, even our daughter way up in Missoula sent us a picture this morning overlooking the town, and we could hardly recognize the place due to the smoke. I suppose they'll get handles on the fires one of these days. Maybe we'll get some rain - no lightning, just rain.
Good luck on your elk hunt.
Yep, the smoke's bad enough clear over here on the eastern side of Idaho to cause my wife and me sore throats. I can't imagine how much worse it is over on the west side of the state. I guess it's pretty bad all over the western US. Heck, even our daughter way up in Missoula sent us a picture this morning overlooking the town, and we could hardly recognize the place due to the smoke. I suppose they'll get handles on the fires one of these days. Maybe we'll get some rain - no lightning, just rain.
Good luck on your elk hunt.
SAJohn
Hunter
Ross, I too am sorry about your wife's suffering.
You would not believe the amount of smoke around here. Warm Springs, the local Indian reservation, has a world class fire still burning for the last two weeks. Yesterday I drove through there and clocked the width of the burned path on the highway at 15 miles. It darned near took out the casino, heaven forbid. Now it is up into the heavy timber. Odd how it started, a pickup truck had a tire blow on the trailer it was towing and smoldering chucks of the tire did the job on the bone dry roadside weeds.
The rumor going around out here is that even easy to access grass fires like this one are ignored until they expand into thousands of acres of trees.
On the hunting: I always had the best results by climbing up high into a pass well before sunup. I also noticed that, when hunting mule deer, I mostly saw elk and vice versa. I am certain those critter check the internet for local species hunting days. Where I live, I have seen legal bucks in season within 40 feet of my freezer. Sadly, my wife has a no deer hunting zone around our 5 acres.
You would not believe the amount of smoke around here. Warm Springs, the local Indian reservation, has a world class fire still burning for the last two weeks. Yesterday I drove through there and clocked the width of the burned path on the highway at 15 miles. It darned near took out the casino, heaven forbid. Now it is up into the heavy timber. Odd how it started, a pickup truck had a tire blow on the trailer it was towing and smoldering chucks of the tire did the job on the bone dry roadside weeds.
The rumor going around out here is that even easy to access grass fires like this one are ignored until they expand into thousands of acres of trees.
On the hunting: I always had the best results by climbing up high into a pass well before sunup. I also noticed that, when hunting mule deer, I mostly saw elk and vice versa. I am certain those critter check the internet for local species hunting days.
Where I live, I have seen legal bucks in season within 40 feet of my freezer. Sadly, my wife has a no deer hunting zone around our 5 acres.
