Go big or go home.... 20,000 acres isn't all that much.
About 3 million acres up in smoke in Alaska so far.
I agree with the regeneration. Elk eat grass, not trees, for the most part, but trees do provide cover for the sneaky critters.
If it is a mosaic burn, with what saddlesore said, the elk, if they are anything like moose, will be using the "islands" of timber for daytime bedding. Hunt them. If not this year, then next years.
Over about 20 years time, I had 100% success on moose hunting such an area by walking the "islands", skipping the regrowth areas except for pass-through. Never hunted more than 4 days either. Over-all success for that area was a bit over 20%, as most "hunters" never got more than a quarter mile off the road, with the exception of the fly-in crowd who hammered the moose in the non-wilderness areas the last 10 days, as permitted, by arial spotting in the evening, and hunting their targeted animals the next morning.
That burn is now almost 55 years old, and the regrowth 70 feet tall, with maybe 10% of the moose it once held, if that. It was interesting watching the succession. I hunted the same two, roughly one square mile each areas the whole time. Some of the moose even had names. Damn, that was fun!
I love burns!. I'll be going back in there again this fall after an absence of 10 years or so, for the latter part of the season. I'm not expecting much.
Two big burns( probably several hundred square miles) now going on at my remote cabin area (no registered cabins lost to date) should provide excellent moose hunting in 10-15 years. I'll be there for the first week of season this year- not expecting much there either.
Heck, I'll only be still in my 80's by the time it gets good up there..
