Mule deer 2025: Here's where we are, and from where we've come

Mule deer hunters have reason to be optimistic about this fall, and cautious about the future. Mule deer harvest increased by 30% last fall over the 2023 season, and signs look promising we could see another harvest bump.

Positive signs for 2025

Mild-to-normal winters typically grow Idaho's mule deer herds, or more accurately, allow herds to grow. But as history has often shown, the good times don't last forever. A normal winter in 2024-25 means favorable odds we'll have as good or better mule deer hunting than last year. Survival of collared fawns last winter was around 58 percent, a tick up from the long-term average of 57 percent.

"We're growing mule deer herds with 58 percent survival," Fish and Game's Deer/Elk Coordinator Toby Boudreau said.

Idaho is a big state, fawn survival wasn't uniform, and there are also some troubling signs ahead. But first, the good news. After the Southeast Region was hit hard by a catastrophic winter in 2022, it posted some of the highest fawn survival rates in the state last winter, which bodes well for their rebounding mule deer herds.

Things were opposite in the Southwest Region where despite a normal winter in Unit 39, which is one of the state's most-popular mule deer units, only 31% of collared fawns survived. No need to panic, yet, because Unit 39 still has one of the biggest mule deer herds in the state, but low fawn survival is a sign that the herd is reaching the limits of its habitat. Biologists have been seeing lighter fawns coming into recent winters, and fawn weight is an accurate predictor of their winter survival.

"Light fawns often indicates some habitat limitations on summer range," Boudreau said.

In short, too many mouths and not enough groceries. The solution could be something that's counter intuitive to many hunters - the need to harvest more deer, including does, to get a healthy and sustainable herd. Otherwise, a hard winter could hit those herds harder and drop them farther.

But when we look across southern Idaho, mule deer herds are healthy and growing in most areas, so the potential is there for an above-average hunting season.

To see regional information about mule deer hunting, see the 2025 Deer/Elk Outlook .