Silvies/Ochoco/Heppner Tag Return Possible

Togwotee

Long Time Member
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ODFW just sent out an email to tag holders discussing the possibility of returning tags for a refund and point reinstalment due to the mega fires.

No definite plans yet but they're looking at options. and their budget more importantly. at least they're acknowledging there's a problem though so that's good.
 
Basically, from Crazy creek over to Sugar Creek and down into the Paulina valley. about 80,000 acres but quite a bit is private land.

They just opened the area back up I'm going to go see how hard it burnt as soon as I get a chance.

If I had an Ochoco elk tag I'd go hunt. if I had a deer tag I'd try to get my points back because the unit sucks so bad even before the fire.
 
-I just checked, and from what I found, the Ochoco National Forest is still closed from the eastern edge of big summit prairie, to the forest service boundary on the east side. The areas around Walton Lake, Lookout Mountain, etc to the west boundary remains open, but the eastern half of the forest is closed.

I also got an email today stating that archery elk and deer tag holders in the Ochoco, heppner and silvies game units could contact odfw to surrender their tags, and get their preference points back. If they want their points back, they must contact the department prior to the season opening a week from tomorrow.

Finally, I have been discussing with Ochoco National Forest personnel the proposed fire break plan for the Jackson watershed north of little summit prairie. Originally the comment period for the project ended on Aug 28, but the agreed yesterday to extend that til Sept 30 to allow the public time to access the area and submit comments. I took from that that they don't expect the closure to be lifted any time soon.


Scoutdog
 
A friend has a cabin over by Rager and they told him they were opening it back up this weekend. so someone is getting bad information I'm not sure who.

It's stupid to keep the entire east side closed but they do a lot of stupid things. the fire is essentially out and they've demob'd most of the crews. when Wolf burnt they kept the actual burn area closed the rest of the year over falling snag concerns. I guess I can see that but not outside the burn area.

If this is true and everyone is forced to hunt west of Cold Springs it's going to be a total clustershag.
 
I believe the closure notice allowed landowners to access their property during the closure. Perhaps that is what they were saying.
 
The Rail Ridge fire is up to 107,000 acres in just a few days. burning in the eastern Ochoco and Western Murderer's creek units. no hunting anywhere near them.

Even worse the Murderer's Creek ranch wildlife area is completely burnt and it's essential wintering grounds for the game herds. this is already devastating and it's still growing in all directions.
 
I have a 1st rifle in Ochoco. I think the season should be closed & points returned. Most of the East side has experianced fire.
 
If you look at the Watch Duty app, or ONX it truly is unsettling to see all the wild fires. The western states have been hammered, and received more lightening last night.
 
It's the worst disaster I've seen in a lifetime in the area. talked to a rancher friend in Paulina and he said the only reason they didn't lose all their cattle is because they moved them down due to the Crazy Creek fire. sounds like the Izee lost about 300 head. they've been finding dead deer, elk, owls , turkey everything. some they kill because they're burnt, blind and suffering. it's awful.

Weather looks better this week maybe something can be salvaged. much cooler and some rain.

ODFW is almost going to have to offer to take the tags back in Ochoco, even in this fire is out by rifle season, which is unlikely, the USFS isn't going to allow any access to the burnt area for months so even if the game returns to the lighter burnt areas it will be off limits.

MC is hard to say yet, it hasn't had as much summer and fall habitat burn yet but it's far from over. we'll know in the next few weeks.
 
I’ve recently moved to the Redmond area and the fiancée has a Ochoco rifle deer tag. Think we need to get in contact with fish and game about getting her points back
 
You could check, The Rail Ridge fire has died down a lot but I'm not optimistic they'll allow the public back in before season. and I don't know what you'll find if they do.

Just to warn you, even if everything goes your way you're going to cry when you see how bad the hunting sucks . compared to the worst unit in CO it's still going to suck. I cannot stress enough how bad our deer hunting has become, and it used to be fantastic.

Try to get an elk tag when you can, it's pretty good. if you need any pointers on the unit or those around it contact me I've lived and ranched here my entire life .
 
You could check, The Rail Ridge fire has died down a lot but I'm not optimistic they'll allow the public back in before season. and I don't know what you'll find if they do.

Just to warn you, even if everything goes your way you're going to cry when you see how bad the hunting sucks . compared to the worst unit in CO it's still going to suck. I cannot stress enough how bad our deer hunting has become, and it used to be fantastic.

Try to get an elk tag when you can, it's pretty good. if you need any pointers on the unit or those around it contact me I've lived and ranched here my entire life .
sent you a PM
 
You could check, The Rail Ridge fire has died down a lot but I'm not optimistic they'll allow the public back in before season. and I don't know what you'll find if they do.

Just to warn you, even if everything goes your way you're going to cry when you see how bad the hunting sucks . compared to the worst unit in CO it's still going to suck. I cannot stress enough how bad our deer hunting has become, and it used to be fantastic.

Try to get an elk tag when you can, it's pretty good. if you need any pointers on the unit or those around it contact me I've lived and ranched here my entire life .
What are your thoughts on the Ochoco elk. I think with the amount of unit burned ODFW should be shutting down both the Deer & Elk seasons. I have a email into them & it is suppost to be working its way up the chain, but not holding my breath. I think the decisions should happen soon. But I hope the state will not drag their feet (in their email it state sometime they do not know to shut the season down until after the season) (Pathetic).

Hunting the Ochoco unit is not going to help things at all IMO. They need to not cause a secondary disaster.

Here is a copy of their statement.

ODFW's commitment to hunters is that we will make decisions about offering reinstatement of points/refunding tags as soon as we have sufficient information to do so. This is a balancing act. A decision too far in advance of a hunt can be premature when closures are in flux. In some cases, primarily with larger “mega” fires, we can evaluate and make a decision within about two weeks of opening day based on the extent of the fire across a particular hunt unit, the duration of a hunt period, and decisions by public land managers. For other hunts, we may not know until after the hunting season ends.

Any Info would be greatly appreciated.




.
 
My family has recreated on the east end of the Ochoco unit for more than 80 years. My two brothers and I spent three summers at Rager around 1960 when my grandfather worked for the forest service and was stationed at Rager.

There is currently no access to any of the areas we hunt, so I don't know how bad it is, but there is no question these are the worst fires (Crazy Creek and Rail Ridge fires) in more than 100 years.

The first day of the Rail Ridge fire, it advanced more than 60 thousand acres. There were four separate lightning strikes that eventually merged in the Rail Ridge fire. The first day, it burned virtually all of the forest, and a lot of blm and private land on the southeast corner of the forest, and crossed the South fork of the John Day River burning into the Murderers Creek unit. By the third day, it had burned most of the Phillip Schneider wildlife area, burned over the top of Aldridge ridge, and threatened Aldrich lookout. At that point, it was mostly going east in the murderers creek unit.

Then the wind changed, and it burned up Black Canyon Creek in the wilderness area, surrounded Mud Springs campground, and burned up on wolf mountain before the wind changed again and stopped the movement to the west. It looked to me like the firefighters planned on stopping it on the west where they had stopped the Crazy Creek fire, but the wind change kept it from getting that far. It also burned north across the lower end of Cottonwood Creek and ended up within a mile or so of Dayville, where they stopped the north run.

It is certainly likely that there are areas that were not completely destroyed, but there was already a critical shortage of security cover on the east of the end of the forest. These two fires have reduced that substantially. Assuming the forest service does salvage logging here, once again impacting security cover, I would guess elk will spend far less time on the forest than they have in the past. I would not be surprised if a lot of our elk ended up on the private land on the west end of the silvies unit.

As to deer, it should be a crime to hunt them on the Ochoco unit, 40,000 deer in the late 60's to 3,600 last year, according to odfw statistics. I would be shocked if the forest service opened any of the areas that burned, or the areas that did not burn between the two fires, before the rifle deer season. Hopefully, odfw will cancel the hunt. It would be a disaster to put 1,800 deer hunters on the west end of the unit, but I am not holding my breath. I think it is too soon to know about elk season. We have two tags for first season, and hope we can turn them in and recover the points. No one in our group wants to deal with the depression if it burned our hunting area as badly as it appears on their fire maps.

Scoutdog
Mike Morris
503-317-7576
 
You're exactly right, you know the area well and I couldn't agree more.

They've allowed the landowners back in and the ones I've talked to say it burnt so hot around Hardscrabble where it started their timber has no salvage value. it killed cattle, deer, elk everything, hard to say how many yet. after the first day it slowed down and wasn't quite as bad, but heavier pockets torched.

Here is the problem, ODFW is looking at how many tags = How many $ and making their decision based on that and nothing else. if they had to refund the money they'd have to borrow it and there's no provision for that.

As I've said before, the worst part could be this winter, not only are the south fork wintering grounds a complete loss but up north of the river at Monument that area lost 90% of the wintering feed. this is a disaster and ODFW is hoping they can just slide though the season without having to admit it. I keep watching their news feed and so far crickets.

They need to cancel the seasons or at the very least offer to take the tags back and restore points. there should have been no deer seasons in eastern Oregon even before the fires. and the elk numbers are in decline so don't kick them when they're down.
 
This is the responce I got from ODFW last Monday the 16th
John,



I have forwarded your email to our Wildlife Division staff, as you requested.





Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife

4034 Fairview Industrial Dr SE

Salem, Oregon 97302-1142

Ph: (503)947-6027

[email protected]
 
I’ve recently moved to the Redmond area and the fiancée has a Ochoco rifle deer tag. Think we need to get in contact with fish and game about getting her points back

Wait a minute you went from one bad state in Calorado to an even worse state in Oregon? Yikes wait til you see how bad the MD hunting is here, you're in for a real shock especially if you thought CA, was getting bad!

On a side note welcome 😉
 
Wait a minute you went from one bad state in Calorado to an even worse state in Oregon? Yikes wait til you see how bad the MD hunting is here, you're in for a real shock especially if you thought CA, was getting bad!

On a side note welcome 😉
With a kid on the way it’s a sacrifice I had to make. There are obviously worse places to be but I will have to make the best of it for a couple years.
 
If you get out of Deschutes County eastern OR is a pretty good place to live. you have the best of both worlds, a very rural red state lifestyle where the libs know they're not going to change you, but at the state level the far-right Nazi's don't have the power to stick their noses in women's doctor's offices or force their religion on you. it's a great place to live really , I just wish ODFW cared as much about hunting as they do money.
 
All good points the far Right Nazis (Republicans) don't have the power to stick their noses in women's doctors offices or force religion on you. But the far left Democrats who run the state can sure fire an Oregon State Employee for not getting the Covid vaccine? Funny how it's not even required now and many State Employees got fired for not getting the jab. Oh well as the old saying goes "My body my choice" Hmmmmmmmm???

Enjoy Oregon Caloradoboy!
 
If you don't like it you can find another job. a woman in Idaho has to leave the state for health care. same thing?

I had to get my vaccinations to go to public school when we had a republican governor and nobody said anything about it. guess there just weren't so many victims back then.
 
the rail ridge fire in the Ochoco unit took off again this afternoon. Burning on the north side of Black Canyon wilderness area. That is a terrible place to try and stop a fire. Not sure which direction it is going, but put out a very large smoke plume this afternoon. Hopefully more info available tomorrow.

scoutdog
 
They're back burning it on the north side is the reason for the most part of it. in the process they took out Princess Ridge and it's still working up towards wolf in big black.

Talked to one of the guys working on it last night and he said the USFS wants it to burn through the wilderness and this was their chance. I hope it's the right thing to do and the right time to do it, we shall see. and he admitted they're milking it too.
 
If you don't like it you can find another job. a woman in Idaho has to leave the state to murder her baby. same thing?

I had to get my vaccinations to go to public school when we had a republican governor and nobody said anything about it. guess there just weren't so many victims back then.
there I fixed it for you
 
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