Despite an arid summer in southwest Saskatchewan, the number of hunters out as fall arrives isn't expected to take a hit.

Brant Kirychuk, Saskatchewan's executive director of the Ministry of Environment's Fish, Wildlife, and Lands Branch, said tags were given out in the spring, so recent weather can't influence how many people are hunting.

"Our seasons and allocations were set in the spring based on current populations," said Kirychuk. "We won't be seeing much impact on wildlife populations as a whole as it is right now. Winter conditions and heavy snowfall tends to have more impact than these kinds of dry conditions."

With dry grass more liable to ignite, the provincial government sent out a release last week encouraging people to hunt in ways that mitigate the risk.

While the amount of tags given out won't change, Kirychuk said it's possible some landowners may be more reluctant to allow hunting permissions because of the risk of fire.

"I think that's possible, and I would expect some landowners would possibly be asking to keep off their land. Especially if there's a lot of grass carry over, that kind of thing on pasture lands. The other thing I expect is a lot more requests for hunting on foot only. To what level? It's hard to say. I think with a lot of cases, hunters have their traditional areas and traditional people they ask to hunt on their land. So there's a relationship built up."

Kirychuk has to go by what he hears from people in various RMs and word on mouth to get an idea how often hunters are denied permission to go on someone's land.

Hunting by archery is a trend that's been growing over the last decade, and can reduce the risk of a fire starting from a rifle shot hitting rocks and sparking.

Kirychuk doesn't think the dry weather has influenced its growth, but did say it's certainly a growing activity.

"Over the last probably 10 years there's been an increase in people wanting to hunt through archery seasons," he said. "It's being delivered through schools and the wildlife federation, so children are picking up this skill and carrying it on as they get older and want to hunt. So I think that's one thing. And archery is quiet. There are generally fewer people out. Some people prefer it just because it's sort of back to nature and quiet."