Deer in Idaho unit 39

[jstone]

I used to hunt 39 deep into the unit. The last time was two or three years ago. Saw very few deer but lots of wolf tracks. Did anyone hunt it last year? Are the deer coming back? Are the wolves being thinned out in that area?

[Karl Blanchard]

I used to hunt 39 deep into the unit. The last time was two or three years ago. Saw very few deer but lots of wolf tracks. Did anyone hunt it last year? Are the deer coming back? Are the wolves being thinned out in that area?

wolves have little impact on those deer. Leading into the winter of 2016/2017 that sawtooth herd was actually at a decade long high of 34k animals.  Weather hit early in 2016 which triggered their migration early and it was a slaughter during rifle season. Like a thousand extra bucks were killed or something close to that. Then obviously we all know 16/17 winter was the worst die off we have seen in a long time. I can't remember the exact numbers but when factoring in the huge hunter harvest AND older age class buck mortality that winter it was something like 80 plus percent of bucks didn't make it through. I'd have to go find it all again so don't quote me on those exact numbers. Was just reading their winter survey report and seems they wintered well with fawn survival being very good this year. We aren't gonna see years like 2013-2016 for a while.. Shaping up to be another terrible drought year too...

[jstone]

Thank You Karl for the great information

[spin05]

We will see. We have not been since 2015 or 2016.  we got tags this year thou.

[jstone]

I am hoping that you do well. I would like to put in for tags this year