Utah Deer — South Slope, Bonanza/vernal
Utah South Slope, Bonanza/vernal covers 1,320,496 acres and lies 100 miles east of Heber. 78% of it is public land, mostly BLM (43%) and national forest (22%). In 2023, 828 people hunted deer here and took 436 — 53% of them killed something.
Your chance of drawing here
Utah Division of Wildlife Resources has not offered a deer license in South Slope, Bonanza/vernal in any draw we hold. It has a page because the agency still publishes harvest for it — the Utah deer hunts that are on offer are drawn elsewhere.
The country
Boundaries are drawn for orientation only — the written boundary description in the regulations governs.
Who owns the ground
- BLM 562,967 ac · 43%
- National Forest 285,851 ac · 22%
- Private 211,827 ac · 16%
- State trust land 107,219 ac · 8%
- Tribal 83,243 ac · 6%
- National Park Service 53,003 ac · 4%
- State land 8,262 ac · 1%
- National Wildlife Refuge 7,473 ac · 1%
- Bureau of Reclamation 76 ac · 0%
How the hunting has gone
What Utah Division of Wildlife Resources publishes for this area after each season — harvest statistics for everyone who hunted it, not draw odds and not a forecast. Utah Division of Wildlife Resources publishes these per hunt rather than per unit; the rows below add its own figures together, since a hunter holds one tag for the species in a season.
| Season | Hunters | Harvest | Success |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 828 | 436 | 53% |
| 2022 | 1,119 | 633 | 57% |
| 2021 | 1,097 | 595 | 54% |
What people carried (2023 harvest)
- Archery 58 · 15% · 222 hunters, 26% success
- Muzzleloader 67 · 17% · 143 hunters, 47% success
- Firearm 264 · 68% · 352 hunters, 75% success
Boundary: Utah Wildlife Management Units — Mule Deer (DWR biologist WMU/herd-unit layer)