I drew the unit 41 late season buck tag this year. Mostly because I was under the impression that unit 41 had only slightly less trophy potential than units 40 and 42, and had better drawing odds. Unit 41 is not in the same class as 40 and 42, not even close. I'm sure there are some folks out there who have seen, heard, or harvested mega bucks in Unit 41 but my guess is they were supremely lucky or had insider info or both.
Here is the short of it. If you don't have time to scout properly, and I mean at least a week (if you've never been to the unit I would highly recommend two weeks), the late deer hunt can be brutal. First, I'm quite sure deer move out of Nevada if there is enough snow, but what Idaho won't tell you is that there is plenty of winter habitat in Nevada. Even if you get a big snow its not going to flood Nevada deer into Idaho. Yes some do make the trek but its not as many as folks anticipate. I think for most non-resident hunters you end up hunting resident deer, whether you know it or not. Deer densities for resident deer are very low and given that there is tons of country for them to hide in, you are truly looking for needles in a hay stack. Another sore spot is there are four antelope seasons and a general deer season before the late hunt, as well as quite a few chuckar hunters, and numerous atv'ers who are on safari throughout the Owhyees. One of the antelope hunts is actually an unlimited controlled hunt. I scouted in Aug and Sept and ran into antelope hunters and chuckar hunters galore, camped out smack in the middle of areas I had identified on Google Earth. I spent all of my hunting season essentially scouting. I saw a few deer, some 2pts and couple small 3pts and a super wide 2X3. But it was tag soup for me.
Unit 41 always posts excellent harvest rates, but I think those rates are drastically skewed toward resident hunters. I'm not sure I believe the percentage of 4p+ deer that IDFG reports are harvested either. All the biologists I spoke to said the feedback they are getting from unit 41 hunters indicates deer quality is way down. I know some of the numbers IDFG posts are extrapolated from a smaller sample size. My take is that non-resident hunter likely have a harvest rate of 30%-40% which is about the same harvest rate as the general season.
Next season I will be putting in for non-resident Utah hunts. No one talks much about Utah as a non-resident deer destination, but Utah is doing something right. Deer numbers are up and harvest rates are up and for most hunts (rifle or archery) you can draw every 2-3 years.
