Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game New to Forum - First western hunt

Evening y’all, I’m JJ. From WV but currently stationed in eastern N.C. for the Marines. I hunt deer, waterfowl and just about anything else I can. My brother and I are looking to go on our first western hunt next year, planning on hunting mule deer in Idaho or Wyoming. Neither of us are concerned with huge bucks and are looking to do it as cheap as possible, DIY public land hunts camping out and whatnot. Just thought I’d see if anyone on here has any suggestions/tips. Any help on navigating the state websites, good units to look at or anything like that sorting out all the legal sides of it would also be appreciated.

Many of Idaho's central, and southern areas had a severe winter kill last year. Numbers are down significantly. Some areas of Wyoming took a pretty good hit too. That might factor into where you consider to hunt. Good luck.

I'm in ohio, so have nothing to add to your hunt, but welcome and thank you for your service.

Thanks for the info, I’ve been trying to do a lot of research and hadn’t heard that yet. We’re looking at probably going in 2019.

For Wyoming you need to apply for mule deer by the end of May. As a non resident you'll need to apply even for general tags.

Idaho's draw period ends June 5th (I think) so you still have plenty of time for that. Idaho also has general units that you could just buy a tag for when you show up. Some units (for elk at least, not sure about deer) have caps on the number of general tags sold though, so keep that in mind.

Semper Fi. I was with 1/10 on Camp Lejeune a while back. Got out in 2008.

Yeah I’d seen that I have to draw for Wyoming, may apply for a preference point this year since we’re not planning on going until the fall of 2019. If we go to Idaho we’re going to do OTC, that may be the best since my brother will be in college and it could be hard for him to get the right time off and we couldn’t return a tag if we had to draw. I’m stationed on Cherry Point.

It will likely be 2 to 3 years, if winters are easy before deer numbers recover much. And this winter has been very easy for most of southern and western Idaho, so at least that is a start.

GFY!

... and welcome to 24HCF.

What county d'ya hail from?

FC

Craven Co in N.C. in WV it was Cabell

Gotcha. My business takes me through Cabell to get to Mingo, Logan, & sometimes Wyoming counties. Pretty country, for sure.

FC

Montana might be an option. Long seasons and a bit closer than ID. Might not draw but think you would know before ID deadline.