Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Public land grazing

Damn Sam,

As I have said before, you are one fantastic Kodiak cowboy. Your pictures are not only easy on the eyes, but also smooth the wrinkles of the mind. Great stuff Sam, keep them coming.

W. Bill

Thanks man.

BLM, you can tell there were some cows around here but they moved out and the grass came back amazing later on.




Mix of deeded and BLM. Can't hardly even see the fence line.

Cant see the fence lines here either.


Too much snow.......

Jim, how much you guys end up with?

Maybe 4-5" here and it's halfway heavy.


It needs to go away. Not ready for this chit to stick around.



Bunch of hay barley to haul off the field but at least most of the cows are home.

10-12 inches.


The last snow had just melted off..........seriously. Just yesterday morning it left.


Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.......

I suddenly don't feel so bad.....


You got honked!

Great pics as usual Sam.

Jim that's a kick in the nads. I hope you get to see your fields again this year.

Public land grazing is huge around here. Its handled by the province, used to be through the forest service. Now that branch is within some govt outfit with a name a mile long. Basically most of BC is by far public land. The south half or so of the province has a lot of private land around the valley bottoms but its crown land as we call it in the hills pretty much exclusively.

Logging and grazing go hand in hand. You apply for a lease and your permit works with the logging plans so as the ranchers and loggers are out of each others way. A lot of it isn't grass land at all. But the first 2 to 5 years or so of a new cut block breeds lots of forbs; fireweed, other flowering stuff. And a bit of grass here and there. The cows are turned loose round about April I believe and they slowly eat their way up hill following the green up. They're not allowed above 1700 metres, about a mile high. They've got to be off crown land by November 1 most places, and by that time weather and food source has naturally forced them back down hill. A lot of the outfits I hunt around don't have a hell of a big deal come round up time especially if they've got an ajoining lease to their land. Almost a case of opening a gate type of deal. A lot don't have an ajoining lease and may have a lease quite a ways away and do a lot of trailering/trucking to make it work. Cows look happy and healthy on the ranges I frequent.

Overgrazed pastures here take years to recover.

BLM land, outside my perimeter fence, June this year:



June 2108:



The neighbor's cows on his BLM allotment, May of this year, moving them to the other side of his e-fence. As you can see, it's still pretty green:



Now, a July pic showing how much the grass has dried up. Mostly cheat, some medusahead or squirreltail. (My wife got me "Weeds of the West" for my BD this year, I hope to get a better ID on them this coming spring/summer) Gets really dry this late in the year. Not a drop of rain for over a month now. Neighbor pulls his cattle off by late June, July at the latest:



Wish the BLM would get in this area and start with removing some of the young juniper that is trying to take over. And have a controlled burn. But, I'm entirely pleased they are my neighbor, the critters like it too.

Geno

Why do you want the juniper gone?

Come visit here, we've got juniper................for firewood!

Geno

Notice in my pics there are a lot of young trees, less than 6-8 feet high. I hunted up the road about 50 miles from here in '98. Complete change in the look of the area since then. Imagine it's the same in my "backyard" as those small trees are less than 20yo. Big problem with juniper, and in some other areas juniper/piñon, taking over grassland/sage/steppe habitat.

Some light reading for you:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=juniper+encroachment&t=ffnt&ia=web

Lack of regular fire is a contributor. Good for our firewood supply here, but cuts back on grazing. Lot of the private ranches clear the stuff off as best they can. Leave some for shade for the cows of course.

Interesting thing around here, one can drive down the road and see junipers growing in nice straight rows..........along fence lines and under powerlines! The birds eat the berries and we know what happens next. I'll look for a demonstrative pic.

Geno

Then let the wild horses run free..

I asked because I got an education about sage brush a few years ago.


Always keen to kill the stuff......cut down on grazing you know and carrying capacity.


My friend at the NRCS showed me some studies that showed a fairly extensive sage infestation was not detrimental in any way to carrying capacity.


Improved biodiversity in fact.


Wasn't sure if the same applied to juniper or not. I guess not!

I am for one....sick to death of the sage grouse.


What a fugging quitter.......

Federal gooberment gonna fix it right up

Not the best pic, but the 3-4 trees in the foreground are all in a row. Can't see the fence as the barbwire is laying on the ground now.



Some fencelines it's a continuous line junipers.

Geno

Mebbe dey's 'sposed ta go 'stinct?

Geno

PS honestly, I'd love to have some around here. I'm guessing there was a decent population of them here awhile back. Still some over the hill in the Surprise Valley and a few other places nearby.

PPS if we're not going to have them here, DFG could at least start up a good population of pheasants for me to hunt!

There is so much mis-information out about the greater sage grouse its sickening.


The sage grouse debate is worse than the climate debate..........

Yes might have been a population....if you had the right type of sage brush.


Them grouses are picky as hell. Bout like trying to get a little blond headed white girl to eat her porridge.