Wow. Just Wow. In a couple of years (just like the old Kenai fire) 261 square miles of moose browse.
That is at least 10 years away. Dammit. I'm probably too old now to take advantage of it. Depending on how hot it burned, some areas could be 20 years before it even starts growing browse.
At the home place here in Sterling, the 49 burn (also covered much of the Swan Lake fire area) was hot. When we bought our first lot (still unimproved), in '76 or so, the browse was only about 8 feet high around the place. On our lot here, the spruce coming in underneath was even shorter- They are a good 60 feet, now...
I started hunting the '69 Swanson River burn in 82, - some areas had head high aspen/birch regrowth, some areas were just coming up. Much of it was in-between. For better than 15 years, I had dynamite hunting! After the first year, spent stand hunting (13 days!), only to kill a bull slip-hunting along a closed to traffic road on the last afternoon I could hunt, I figured out stand hunting was a poor way to do it.
I believe Swan Lake fire also burned in a mosaic pattern, at least the early part of it , as did the 69 burn.
I had a 2 part strategy - get off the road at least a half mile (a mile or more was better). That eliminated more than 90% of the competition, and probably doubled the number of moose hanging out.
The second part was to slip-hunt through the "islands" of standing timber- which the moose used as bedding areas, until I saw antlers coming up off the ground, if not feeding already- seldom during mid-day for the latter. At the early part of that time period , "any bull" was the rule, and I think I never hunted more than 2 weekends before I had my freezer filled. I had 100% success in an area that averaged about 20% annually.
A couple days packing, then....
Stand hunting is prime, but not very productive for a couple hours morning and evening - the rest of the day is dead. Slip hunting the bedding areas was potentially productive for upwards of 18 hours a day. I had not yet learned calling techniques.
If you are picky, or after antler restrictions came in, slip-hunting bedding areas became a bit harder. Jumped up bulls give you time to check antler legality, or shoot, but usually not both.
This Swan L. burn is a good thing for moose hunters under 40 or so, in a few years, using the strategy I just outlined, if one is willing to work one's ass off away from the road. Heck, it might even work before the browse comes in and moose numbers increase.
Had they let the Jean Lake fire of a few years ago burn slowly north into the refuge. as it was doing , that would have put a jump on the browse last burned in 49, and reduced the extent of the fuel available to the Swan Fire. And it's cost. It may well have prevented the blow-up when the wind hit, due to lack of available fuel in much of the area. But no, they had all this equipment (trucks, and air-tankers, and crews, oh my!) they just had to play with! I thought at the time they were making a mistake, and haven't changed my mind. At least Cooper Landing is pretty darned fire- safe now for the next 50 years or more.
My old '69 area is all grown up now, with probably 10-15% of the moose it had in the late 80's, but just as many or more bears and wolves. Worth hunting still, if one doesn't expect much in the way of getting... Having 2 caribou and fish filling my freezer I did not moose hunt this year, nor last, with three caribou I brought down from Kotzebue, on my way home after 8 years there- again - not moose hunting down here during that time.
I'm probably gonna get lost (again) next time I go out there.... but at least it is easier walking through this more mature forest, than navigating that early post-fire jungle of deadfalls and birch/aspen growing 6 inches apart.
Nothing wrong with a nice walk in the woods with a rifle.
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