Old guys: How has beetle kill changed your hunting?

[noisy]

I lost so many of my favorite elk spots to beetle kill. It was kind of shocking at the time but, like the elk, I had to adapt.

I don't think the aerial photos do it justice in terms of how much of a pain it can be.

 

[Pony Soldier]

Within 3-5 years after the beetles killed the trees, we started to experience trees falling while you were hunting through them. If you were going through them during a stiff breeze, you could hear trees falling every 5-10 minutes. I had a friend hit by a falling tree while cutting firewood. While I was cutting the dead trees out of my field, I had one fall from my rear and left. A branch sliced my forehead from the hairline to my right eye. Afterward my wife said she could track me from the blood trail I took to get to the phone to get her to take me to the emergency room for stitches.

When the trees are falling around you there is a certain amount of butt puckering.

 

[atmat]

This pic of me is a few years old and this particular area has burned since then, but there are many, many more areas just like this that haven’t burned


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I had a similar experience during archery season this year in north park Colorado area. So much blowdown.