Impact of drought on food in burn area

[Gotcha_]

Hello,

NOT ASKING FOR SPECIFIC GMU ADVICE

Looking at CO mule tag 3rd rifle season. Focusing in a burn area around 9kft. Hoping to gain more understanding how a burn area within the last few years could be impacted by rain or lack thereof as the summer progresses. I'm thinking trees may be fallen and hard to get around, making an attractive sanctuary for deer? I know their main forage at that point of the year is S facing grass if available and then sage. More rain means more intermittent grass within sanctuary while less rain concentrates food. Any other things I could be missing?

 

[BRTreedogs]

Pick a few specific areas.
Call the biologists.
Ask if they are familiar with them. And ask if there is available feed they think the deer will be using that time of year.

 

[farmermail]

Mulies don't eat (well, can't survive on) "grass" in the traditional sense like elk/cattle. Bitterbrush, rabbit brush, forbs, flowering plants, leaves, etc. are their main diet. In the spring/summer, new shoots of bunch grasses could be a food source if other, more nutritious browse isn't available. In a post burn area, look for these new shoots of "bushes" vs. "grass". If nothing but a bunch of cheat grass and not much else, probably not a great area for them. If the burn area is heavily impacted by drought, well, not much is living there anyway.

 

[RockAndSage]

The drought would apply to the whole area, but these burn areas will still typically have some of the best foraging, if everything is getting hit equally hard by poor rainfall. One thing to consider might be finding burn in northeast facing bowls. Those bowls are great in general, as it makes it easy for muleys to feed and quickly get into shade as the sun comes up, across relatively short distances - spending the evening and morning on one side of the bowl, then tucking into shade on the other.

This is pure speculation, but a burn in some kind of shade-transition area like that might be an opportunity during drought, as stuff that's not getting direct sunlight all day, but has direct light during at least part of it, might be able to grow a little bit better than stuff completely shaded or completely lit up all day.