Montana Unlimited units

[Jake Larsen]

The last time I went into any of the Wilderness Areas or hunted in any of the Unlimited Sheep units was in 1999. I was down to only one horse then and my Son and I packed him back into a section of Unit 300 that a friend of mine had killed a nice ram in the year before.

I saw a full curl broomed ram the afternoon before the season opened, then opening morning there were orange pumpkins all around that basin, 4 tent camps in the largest clearing in that basin, and an outfitter bringing his dudes on horseback through the basin. My Son and I and my Goldern Retriever were close enough to several ewes and young rams that we could hear them chewing the grass that they were eating, but we never saw a legal ram.

As for the fires, I think that they have provided more food for the wildlife. 1988 was the worst fire in years in the Yellowstone NP area. In the summer of '89 I helped with some Forest Service trail work in the Hellroaring drainage just north of the Park. The grasses in the burned out areas were higher and brighter green than I had ever seen them before. Today, many of the lodgepole pine areas in the Park that were burned out in '88 have 20-30' high LPP new trees that are almost too close together to walk through.

Every Thanksgiving and Christmas I visit family in the Denver area. About 4 or 5 years ago I found an area just west of Golden, CO where I've counted up to 20 Bighorn rams wintering. I've seen them there every winter since I first discovered them. Last summer about a half mile of that hillside burned. Two weeks ago I spotted a half curl ram feeding on the new grass in that burned area.

That’s been my experience and understanding as well. Historic photos show MASSIVE mind boggling conifer encroachment in most mountain ranges in the west the last 100 years or so. Fires seem to be the recourse, and show nothing but benefit for the wildlife. They can make it harder to get around sometimes though. It’s interesting to think about these macro environmental cycles of half century or century long periods. We see a tiny little snapshot in one human lifespan


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