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| Luna Mountain from 3N98 |
When I first came to know the desert slope of the San Bernardino Mountains, it was a country with the dew still on it.
The northwestern portion of the range was a lonely one then. Outside of the hunting season, the numbers of people visiting
the area were few.
It was a pinyon and juniper country in those days, and much of it wasn't particularly good valley quail or rabbit country
because of this. But there were mountain quail in the pinyon forest, and band-tailed pigeons would roost within it,
stopping during their migration to linger for weeks on end. It was a good deer hunting country, too, and one in which
deer were sighted in herds, rather than one at a time and only on occasion.
Taken as a whole, this little corner of the San Bernardino Mountains that I was most familiar with during my
childhood and teenage years might not have been the best valley quail country, but they could still be found in huntable numbers
if you knew where to look for them. Luna Mountain was one such place, as it was outside of the pinyon belt
and always had the kind of habitat that valley quail find attractive, and so it was with parts of Rattlesnake Mountain and
White Mountain, too. The BLM land adjoining the San Bernardino National Forest on the desert slope of these mountains
was also productive.
Like the Devil Fire which preceded it in 1994, the Willow Fire of 1998 was a devistating event that altered the face
of the land that it burned. It is no longer much of a deer hunting area, and the wild turkey that could be found on portions
of it seem to have all but vanished. One positive result of these fire events, however, is that the altered landscape
now contains more valley quail habitat than it ever did, and thus it contains more valley quail than ever, too.
The Price of Progress
I can remember a time when the portion of the San Bernardino Mountains burned by the Willow Fire was close to 50 miles
by road from the nearest city with a population over 10,000.
When I first started coming to the area as a child, the City of Hesperia wasn't one. It was an unincorporated community
of about 1,500 or so, and the Joshua trees and jackrabbits there outnumbered people by a significant margin. There were
no supermarkets, stop lights, or gas stations in Hesperia back then. You brought what you needed or you did
without it, and you topped off your vehicle's gas tanks at the Summit Inn at the top of Cajon Pass, because it was the last
gas stop on the way.
Nowadays, Hesperia has a population of 85,000 according to the City Limit sign, but it's actually about 7,000 more than
this. Within the next 10 years, the population of this city is expected to exceed 150,000. It isn't growing
alone, either, as the communities of Victorville and Apple Valley are gaining in population, too, and they're doing it at
pretty much the same brisk pace.
The result of this growth is that the wild, remote, and relatively isolated place that I new as a child isn't so remote
or isolated, and it isn't quite as wild, either. It is now just 9 miles by road from the fringe of a metropolis of nearly
three-quarters of a million people, of which many consider the area burned by the Willow Fire to be their backyard playground.
Back when this area was remote, the extensive network of Jeep trails throughout it probably had very little
negative impact on wildlife. These trails, while extensive, where rather infrequently used, and because of this, it
is unlikely that they would have been too disruptive. It isn't the dirt road or Jeep trail that is disruptive to wildlife,
per se. It is the vehicles that drive on them.
Put a road -even one which is little more than a pair of tire tracks meanding through the scub- near civilization, and
people will drive on it.
The Forest Service's response to increased human pressure was to begin closing formerly open routes on the San Bernardino
National Forest. With the Devil Fire and subsequent Willow Fire, it was deemed that extensive vehicle access throughout
the burned area would be detrimental to its recovery. Whether these fires happened or not, though, I suspect that the
road closures which came about in their aftermath would have happened, anyhow.
From the perspective of the hunter, the currently limited road access in the Forest Service portion of the Willow Fire
Burn makes hunting it a little more of a "hit or miss" proposition. Coveys that establish themselves close to remaining
open routes tend to get hammered pretty hard, particularly if you don't need four-wheel drive to get to them. If you're
willing to walk, however, it is possible to find unpressured coveys that may not have shot over at all until you start pulling
the trigger on them. If you walk a mile and a half or two from where you parked your rig, and manage to get into birds,
that's a hit. On the other hand, if you walk a mile and a half or two from your rig and don't get into any
birds, you've got what is essentially a wasted hour just in getting there and another in walking back to your rig, before
you can head off someplace else. That can be a costly miss, particularly if you strike out two or more times during
the course of the day, and do it late in the season when the days are short. With road access, it is really time, rather
than effort, that I am seeking to save by utilizing it. However, you can't utilize what you ain't got. And on
much of the Forest Service portion of the Willow Fire Burn, what you "ain't got" is road access to the degree that there once
was in the same area.
While the vehiclular travel routes which were closed in the Forest Service portion of the Willow Fire Burn remain closed,
the BLM has recently re-opened a number of routes that were also closed in the aftermath of the fire. On the BLM lands,
vehicle access remains fairly good now, thanks to the re-opening of many formerly closed routes.
Instant Quail Country
While there were pockets of valley quail habitat scattered througout the Forest Service lands contained within the Willow
Fire Burn area, this fire event turned almost all of the National Forest lands covered by the USGS Butler Peak, CA 7.5 Minute Quadrangle
into potential valley quail habitat.
Currently, over much of the Willow Fire Burn, you couldn't ask for better valley quail habitat if you designed it yourself.
The various types of brush that quail rely upon for cover have all returned, and there is more wild grass growing within the
area than ever before. In many ways, if you never knew the area prior to the Willow Fire, you'd never know that it happened.
This is especially true in those areas that were always outside of the pinyon belt. Most of these are on the adjacent
BLM land that borders the National Forest, and it looks pretty much like it always did, excepting that there aren't as many
Joshua trees as there were before the fire. In some specific areas, places where the brush was thick and nasty for most
of my hunting careeer before the fire are once again as thick and nasty as ever, in spite of the fact that in the aftermath
of the fire, every visible inch of the burn appeared to be totally scorched beyond healing.
On the Forest Service lands contained within the burn area, the major difference between that country today and what
it is was 12 or 13 years ago is the lack of pinyons. My hunting camp straddled the pinyon belt, with 10 acres covered
with them and about that many being primarily desert scrub. Now, the whole thing is scrub. Even so, there are
pockets throughout the area where the pinyons are coming back.
Take a drive up 3N98, and you'll see live pinyons that are full-sized and looking fairly healthy, considering what they've
been through. Everywhere the eye can see, it sees evidence of the self-healing resilience of nature. The land
is returning to its pre-fire state.
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| Shay Moutnain viewed from 3N98 |
Just Add Water
Most of the area of the Willow Fire Burn has recovered to the point that significant portions of it have the potential
to hold valley quail. Obviously, not all of it does, however. The key to finding quail in this country, like just
about everywhere else, is finding reliable sources of surface water.
The time to do this isn't when Opening Day rolls around. While the Willow Fire Burn is capable of providing
outstanding sport in terms of quail hunting, the degree that it can do so depends largely on how much effort a hunter is willing
to put in to his or her hunting. It's a good area, and there's plenty of ground to hunt. It is not, however, the
kind of place where you can show up on Opening Day having done zero research and expect to do well.
That means that your quail season will begin soon after this one ends, if you intend to try this area for yourself next
season. There are plenty of places where quail could be within the Willow Fire Burn, but there is even more ground that
they don't occupy. Again, the first step is finding water.
Here, you're on your own, to a large degree. While the map of the San Bernadino National Forest that is produced
by the Forest Service shows some of the springs in the Forest Service portion of the Willow Fire Burn, it doesn't
show all of them. In fact, it doesn't even come close to showing all of them and some of the better ones are
left off of it entirely. The same is true for the De Lorme Atlas that many California hunters rely on and include
in their reference library. The same is also true for the USGS 7.5 minute Butler Peak Quad, which covers
a large portion of the Willow Fire Burn.
I could make things easy and list GPS coordinates for all of the springs that I know of within the Willow Fire Burn area,
but I'm a pretty low-tech kind of guy and don't own one of those devices. Even if I was up to date with respect to technology,
the fact that any springs I might list seemed to be flowing well when I last checked them doesn't mean they'll be
flowing well come Opening Day next season. The best way to know which ones are flowing and which ones aren't, and which
ones hold birds and which ones don't, is to scout them periodically during the off season.
Since you're going to need to do some scouting anyhow, you might as well have the fun of discovering a few things about
the area yourself, beginnning your bird hunting by hunting for water.
The most effecient way to do this is by using high ground advantage and good field glasses. If, for example, you
are creeping along in low range and first gear on the Jeep trail that runs along the BLM / Forest Service Boundary from 4N16
to 3N14, you'll be generally running along ridgelines for most of the trail's length. Most of the springs that this
route passes by will be below you. These potential water sources will be visible because of the willowy riparian plant
life that typcially grows around them.
It's the same sort of thing when you're creeping along on 3N59A, as the trail is higher in elevation than most of the springs
that it passes. The same is true for 3N59. The Coxey Truck Trail, or Forest Route 3N14, passes more than a half
of a dozen springs between Bowen Ranch Road and Little Pine Flat, and it literally runs right over two of them.
A fair number of the closed Jeep trails in the Willow Fire Burn either lead to a spring or pass by one. Sometimes,
they lead to or pass by more than one. One of the reasons that they went where they did is that they were cut by
hunters who recognized that wildlife needs water, and won't normally be found too far away from it.
Where springs in this area are concerned, if they are listed on a map, you won't be the only one shooting around them.
Others will have shot around them before you and will do so after you. The most productive springs for holding
birds are going to be those where the hunting pressure is light, and that means that they are going to relatively far from
a road or trail, or they are going to be located off of a trail that is rugged enough to weed out the "non-hackers" among
our ranks.
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| Markers grading routes as "Most Difficult" aren't always kidding about the condition of the trail |
Only in a Jeep
Jeep once had an advertising campaign in which they would show one of their vehicles in some remote-looking spot, with
text that read "Only in a Jeep."
They didn't exactly have a monopoly on off-pavement capability then. Sadly, however, their old advertising slogan
is more true today than it has been since International Harvester came out with the Scout and Toyota began building their
U.S. dealer network on FJ 40 Land Cruiser sales. These days, real four-wheel drive capability is increasingly
tough to find, and even Jeep now markets models so "watered down" that they're pratically useless for backcountry transport.
I drive a TJ Jeep, and the sign at the right explains why. That wavy white line in the blue box next to the image
of a Jeep isn't lying. While many of the trails in the Willow Fire Burn that qualified for a "Most Difficult" rating
are now closed, there are a few that remain, like 3N59A.
While you can hunt the Willow Fire Burn with standard two-wheel drive pasenger vehicles, I wouldn't recommend
doing so. Two-wheel drive might get you into an area, but that doesn't mean that it'll get you out of it.
The "fire roads" in the area are not particularly well maintained and only rarely see a grader blade. The Coxey Truck
Trail, which is the main throughfare through the area, is prone to washout in at least four different places between
Bowen Ranch Road and Little Pine Flat. I've had more than one occasion when I went up the Coxey Truck Trail
with no drama, but going down out of the mountains was an entirely different matter. In one instance, a wash
that was perfectly dry on my way into the mountains became a raging torrent over 200 yards across and over two feet deep.
Even in my TJ, getting across that in the dark was kind of exciting.
Mountain weather is highly variable and it can be localized, too. I've had trips where not a single drop of rain
fell on me where I was hunting, but some must have hit the ground somewhere, because in leaving, I've found myself having
to negotiate washouts or flooded washes that weren't there one my way up and wouldn't be passable without true four-wheel
drive capability.
With two-wheel drive, you aren't going be able to go anyplace that anyone else with two-wheel drive couldn't go.
"Cute utes" aren't much better, and so it is with many late model "Soccer Mom" SUV's on the market today, too. These
vehicles might be a little better than two-wheel drive, but they won't go where my TJ Jeep will.
That is why I picked this particular route marker above. It is located right outside the front gate of my hunting
camp, and it leads to what is arguably some of the best quail hunting in San Bernardino County. This is really saying
something when you consider that Kern County and San Bernardino County are the top quail hunting counties in the state in
terms of the number of quail taken by hunters each year.
From my camp's front gate, 3N59A leads to Luna Mountain, where it then skirts the north slope and proceeds into the BLM
lands beyond, running though an area west of Lion Canyon that is loaded with quail. This trail doesn't look
like much when viewed from my front gate, but it's what you can't see from my front gate that earns this route its
"Most Difficult" rating. The "pucker factor" on this route is definitely high enough to weed out the non-hackers from
among our ranks.
This is why the quail hunting is so good along this route. The birds simply don't get the pressure that coveys
near the "fire roads" get.
In addition to this trail, there is another that runs along the Forest Service / BLM Boundary from 4N16 to 3N14 that
leads to some spectacular quail hunting opportunities. The pucker factor on this one is about as high as it is on 3N59A.
As with that route, without true four-wheel drive capability, you aren't going to be able to run this one, either.
Others may tell you that you don't "need" real four-wheel drive capability to hunt the Willow Fire Burn and that is certainly
true, to a point. It is also true that without it, some of the best shooting will be "off limits" due to the difficult
access.
You don't need a TJ Jeep to access the full measure of hunting opportunity that the Willow Fire Burn can provide, but
you do need something with similar capability to get the most out of the place. Granted, most of the time,
having that sort of capability is overkill. There will be times, however, when you'll use every bit of it that you've
got and you'll be darn glad you've got it, and those times can come when you least expect them, even on roads that are normally
passable with two-wheel drive.
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| A 28 gauge, like this 870LW, is ideal for hunting this area |
Think Small
If you're as old as I am, you may well remember comedian Steve Martin's stand-up routine.
He was one "wild and crazy guy," prone to a malady called "happy feet," and was fond of saying that he liked to get "really
small."
He might not have been the funniest commedian of the 1970's, but he was and is an acommplished banjo player, so I can
identify with him in a sense, since I play the banjo, too. And, like Mr. Martin, I sometimes like to get "really small,"
also. Hunting the Willow Fire Burn is one of the times where it pays to "get small" -as in a smallbore gun.
One of my uncles who had hunted this area since the days when the Korean War was still raging was and is a devoted 28
gauge man, and much of his devotion for the smallbore gun stemmed from his penchant for chasing mountain quail and chukar
across the steep slopes of Luna Mountain. He shot a beautiful little A y A sidelock that weighed less than 5 1/2 pounds,
favoring the gun for its light weight and the light weight of the 28 gauge ammo it fired.
My personal affection for the 28 gauge stems from all of the memories that I have of watching my uncle hit quail square
with a "square load" from the little 28 gauge A y A. When he hit a quail or a chukar, it looked like pillow fight -a
little miniature explosion of fluff and feathers. He hardly ever missed with the gun, either. In his mind, a light,
trim, 28 gauge double was tailor made for shooting in the area that he hunted in.
I think he was absolutely right.
There isn't a whole lot of truly flat ground within the Willow Fire Burn. Most of it is up and what isn't up is
down, and some of it is fairly steep and much of it is loose and rocky. In this enviornment, a light gun that isn't
a burden is a huge benefit, allowing you to hunt harder, and to hunt harder longer.
With the limited road access that is found on the Forest Service portion of the Willow Fire Burn, you're going to do
a lot of walking just to get into birds, and you're going to do a whole lot more of it to stay into them. One of my
personal "honey holes" is nearly two sections of ground away from where I park my Jeep to access it. That's 1,280 acres
of ground that I'll pass through just to get into birds and equals out to nearly a 4 mile round trip. Factor
in all of the walking involved in keeping up with the coveys when they flush, and I'll be covering far more than 4 miles of
ground on foot during the course of a hunt at that spot.
With all of this walking, a lightweight gun like the 28 gauge 870 in the photo above, or a trim, light, double-barrel
of under 6 pounds in weight, or a truly light autoloader like a Franchi AL-48, really is "the ticket."
Of course, you can still get birds in this area with a heavier gun, and if all you've got is a big, heavy 12 gauge,
there is no harm in "runnin' what ya' brung." But if you have a lighter, more responsive and dynamic handling alternative,
this area is one mighty fine place to take advantage of it. Taste is relative, but if I were to pick a gun specifically
for hunting this area, I'd follow my uncle's lead and make it a light, 28 gauge side-by-side. Not only would I have
the advantage of the light gun, but I'd be carrying less weight in terms of ammo, too.
If You Go......
Access to the Willow Fire Burn area is via the City of Hesperia. To get there, take 1-15 to the Main Street off-ramp
at Hesperia and proceed eastbound on Main Street.
Main Street will curve, heading southbound, where it becomes Lake Arrowhead Road. Near this curve, you'll see Rock
Springs Road proceeding eastbound. Make a left on Rock Springs Road and continue eastbound. At the intersection
of Kiowa Road, Rock Springs Road becomes Roundup Way. Continue eastbound on Roundup Way to Bowen Ranch Road and
turn right, heading southbound on Bowen Ranch Road. You will come to a fork in the road, where the Coxey Truck Trail
heads off generally southeast through the mountains. This is the main artirial route through the area.
If you're in to multiple-day hunts, you might consider camping at the Forest Service's Horse Springs Campground.
Most of the sites have shade from pinyons. All of them have tables and fire rings. There are vault toilets.
There is no running water, however, so you'll need to bring your own and plenty of it.
To get to the campground, continue on 3N14 into the National Forest and proceed to the junction of 4N16. Turn left
on 4N16 and, about 3/4 of a mile or so past the junction, you should see a road on the left with a sign indicating that it
leads to Horse Springs Campground. Horse Springs Campground used to be a "no fee" area, but the Forest Service now charges
$10.00 a night for the privilage of camping there. In addition to Horse Springs Campground, the Forest Service currently
allows "open plan" camping on this portion of the San Bernardino National Forest. In other words, you can now legally
camp outside of developed campsites in this area. If you can do without the few ammenities you get at Horse Springs,
setting up camp outside of the developed campground can save you a few bucks.
If you continue on 4N16 from the turn-off to Horse Springs, you'll come to 3N17, which runs across a broad flat before
climbing up and over White Mountain. Where it runs along the flat, there are couple of nice, flat spots shaded
by pinyons that make pretty nice camping spots. Alternatively, continuing along 3N14 from the junction at 4N16 will
take you first to Coxey Meadow, which can be a pretty nice spot to camp at. The ponds there have bass in them, which,
while small, can be fun to play with on a 3 weight fly rod, if you're so inclined. Beyond Coxey Meadow, 3N14 meets 3N41
at Little Pine Flat, where there is some flat ground off 3N41 upon which one could establish a comfortable little camp.
Another spot, albeit one which sees heavy use, is Carbine Flat, which located at the terminus of 3N59.
In most years, the D-14 Deer Season runs through the first or second Saturday of November, so you'll be competing with
deer hunters for camping space. Most of the deer hunting attention in the area these days is focused on Shay Mountain,
so if you stay away from it, you'll still have plenty of hunting ground to yourself.
As I mentioned several times previously, this is a big area, one which comprises both BLM and Forest Service lands. It
begins, essentially, at the juntion of Bowen Ranch Road and the Coxey Truck Trail, which is designated by the Forest Service
as route 3N14. It ends at Big Pine Flat.
The higher you go in elevation on 3N14 past Coxey Meadow, the more likely it is that any quail you encounter will be
mountiain quail, rather than valley quail.
In the lower elevations closer to Bowen Ranch Road, you need to be sensitive to the various private landholdings in the
area and learn where the BLM Boundary is so that you don't find yourself trespassing on private ground.
As for maps, you'll want to obtain the Forest Service map of the San Bernardino National Forest, the BLM Surface Management
Map for the Juniper Flats Management Area, and USGS 7.5 Minute Quadrangles for Butler Peak, CA and Old Woman Springs, which
will cover virtually all of the relevant portions of the Willow Fire Burn that upland hunters would be concerned with.
And, as I mentioned previously, this is not the kind of area where you can just show up on a whim and expect
to do well. It is the kind of area that you're going to have to put a little effort in to get to know well enough to
be able to reap the rewards that it can offer. That such a reward will come to those willing to put forth a little effort
in reaping is beyond question. There is a reason why I plan on hanging on to the family hunting camp up there, and there
is a reason why I am not the only person hunting upland game in the area.
Taken as a whole, the Willow Fire Burn area might not be the best quail hunting country in the state, but most of it
is good enough to satisfy most reasonable folks and some of it is shockingly so, which makes the effort required in getting
to know it worthwhile.
Fawnskin is about 15 miles from Horse Springs Campground on 3N14, and you'll be about that same distance from Hesperia.
If you have Verizon as your cell phone provider, you should get a good signal from virtually anywhere within the Willow
Fire Burn area.
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