I just got back from an afternoon in the woods and, am absolutely dismayed.
I got on my 6 wheeler and drove dirt roads, covering about 35 miles of country. The woods in this area consist of Ponderosa Pine trees with Pinion and Juniper intermixed.
As I drove, I saw several elk tracks on the dirt roads and every dried up puddle of water had several elk, deer and antelope tracks in it.
About 20 minutes after I started my trek, I jumped 3 nice bull elk and watched them move into a group of trees.
Because of our lack of rain, I wanted to check waterholes and catchments and see if it would be worth placing a trail camera.
I love scouting areas and setting trail cameras. The pictures I get sometimes are priceless.
As I continued, I checked every water source I found and, every one was completely dry. The sad part was, to see the all of the animal tracks in the dried mud.
After a couple of hours, I was growing concerned at not finding any water anywhere. I know of a catchment that holds 20,000 gallons and thought that every animal must be pounding that one.
As I got close to this particular catchment, I saw a real nice antelope buck. He went over the hill and I continued. I was excited to see him so close to the water and, thought this was going to be a hot spot.
When I got to the catchment, I felt so bad, seeing it dry and, all of the wildlife tracks around it. I could tell the antelope had checked it several times to see if there was anything to drink.
Our monsoon is here, and it threatens to rain every day, but the most I have seen so far, is about 5 minutes of drizzle.
Hopefully, we will get a lot of rain very soon, the wildlife and forests really need it.
Garth