Living in Washington, I always thought Idaho was the land of plenty, as far as hunting. Perhaps up North?
I'm only talking about how lousy mule deer hunting in Idaho is. Idaho is pretty good for elk and pronghorns - if you can draw a tag in the right area. It's just been lousy for mule deer since the early '90s, I think. We had a couple of really bad winters back then, and that cost Idaho about 2/3s of its mule deer population. And since then, it seems like every time our mule deer herds start to recover a bit, along comes another nasty winter. Last winter wasn't all that bad though, and we're seeing a lot of mule deer around here this spring, so we're hoping for a good season this year.
I'm 76, and I've lived and hunted in Idaho my whole life - except for 4 years when Uncle Sam made me live somewhere else. And while I like elk, and especially pronghorn meat, my favorite type of big game hunting (and meat) has always been mule deer, and this is the best part of the state to hunt mule deer in. There's getting to be more whitetails "up North," and there's even a few showing up around here. But southern Idaho is "best" for
mule deer hunting - always has been.
Oh, and not to go off topic and start a big ol' argument by mentioning "wolves," but I don't think the reintroduction of wolves impacted Idaho's mule deer population all that much. I'm pretty sure the reintroduction of wolves has changed the migration patterns of Idaho's elk though. We hardly ever saw an elk around here 20 years ago, but now there's all kinds of "elk crossing" signs and solar-powered reader-boards on the highways - even on the interstates. And drivers
should be paying attention to those signs, because it seems like there's elk everywhere nowadays. And neither Toyota Corollas nor 600lb elk fare very well when they tangle.