The Utah DWR is a highly embattle agency with with a relatively poor track record of management relative to the extraordinary potential of the landscape. I lived in UT for ten years, but did all my hunting in Idaho after a couple years even though I love Utah's country and harvested elk, deer and antelope there...as resident, if I wanted to hunt an area with nice muleys or bull elk...forget about it... you would wait years to draw. Idaho, Wy, MT, CO all have a variety of options for various big game hunts that are in my opinion far superior to Utah's options. DOnt get me wrong, Arizona, NM, and Utah have some archery elk limited entry hunts that are off the charts dream tags for recordbook bull elk and mule deer, AND the fall climate is more predictable and the terrain is more civilized than ID,MT,WY. But I dont think I will ever hunt in Utah again - I think it is ridiculous that they have just enacted even MORE restrictive Mule deer regs...the fact that they cannot sustain better herds in such an enormous state with such varied habitats and such low human population densities is crazy to me.
Part of the problem is that private agricultural landowners in Utah - by-in-large, are not particularly friendly to conservation innitiatives - they have polical strangle-hold on the DWR and state senate vs. states like WY and MT where the F&G outfits are seen positively by the political establishment. Of course when you pay your game warden less than 30k a year you probably are not catching a lot of poachers either:) the other problem Utah has is too much easy ATV access everywhere.
The far western edge of the state in the Great Basin is prob the most underappreciated area. anyone interested in hunting utah in areas with hardly anyone around and HUGE mule deer and some very very desirable limited entry elk units...look at the far western and northwestern part of the state.