From what I hear it’s hard to get a tag and harder to get a deer. Good luck. Those from whom I’ve heard it will be along to guide you shortly I believe.
What courtgreene said. Except I don't know about how "hard" it is for a non-resident to get an Idaho deer tag. I've been an Idaho resident my whole life (74 years), and I simply go to the store and
buy a deer tag just before the season opens.
I
did hear that the Idaho Department of Fish and Game is putting restrictions on the sales of non-resident deer tags nowadays though. So if you want a non-resident deer tag, you'd better buy one as soon as they become available - which I don't know when that is.
As far as how hard it is to get a deer in Idaho goes, I know a
lot about that. Every year, only about 1 in 3 Idaho deer hunters even get a deer - and that includes
me, even though I live in the best part of the state for mule deer hunting, and I've been hunting them my whole life. Fortunately, my wife is also an avid deer hunter, so she essentially doubles our chances of putting a venison in the freezer.
Sorry if I sound discouraging, rodex. And please don't think I'm trying to discourage you from coming to Idaho to hunt deer because I have something against out-of-state hunters - I
don't. I'm just telling it the way it is - deer hunting in Idaho is poor to say the least, and non-resident tags are expensive, and I've heard they're limited nowadays.
On the other hand, almost two-thirds of Idaho is public land. That's 32 million acres, and almost all of it is accessible. So you don't have to beg a landowner, or pay for a lease to get permission to hunt here - unless you
want to. My family has always hunted public land - BLM and Forest Service land. However, this year I think we'll be deer hunting over on our friend's ranch about 5 miles west of here. We've been killing ground squirrels over there for a couple of weeks now, and we're seeing a lot of deer.
Oh, just one more thing - you
do know deer hunting is restricted to "antlered deer only" in almost all parts of Idaho (unless you're 16 or under) don't you? It's been like that for probably 40 years now. Our youngest grandson turned 21 recently, so it's been a while since we've seen a dead doe - except for the dozen or so we see alongside the road between here and town every week.