I am not sure what you mean by "bad year."
Numbers?
Buck Quality?
Bull Quality?
I saw more deer this year, than I have in a lot of years. 80 deer on opening day of archery season, including at least 10 bucks, 1 of which was a solid 4 point, as well as a couple other nice bucks. Tons of does and fawns. Triplets in some cases. Groups of does and fawns typically had more does than fawns (one group during my daughter's hunt had 13 deer - the buck she killed, 5 does and 7 fawns).
I killed my buck on the second day of archery. My daughter hunted a total of 4 hours for her buck, and we saw 3 others that day. We didn't leave the house until 1230, and she killed her little buck at about 5 pm. We saw one "Nice" buck prior to that, and a couple bigger fork horns.
I have seen several nice bucks since then, including a nice mature (but broken) four point chasing does on Saturday.
Antelope are healthy and are at least average for this are for the number and size of bucks, as well as fawn numbers and herd numbers.
Not much to say on elk, but I have seen quite a few on the Interstate 80. If those are an indication, it has certainly been at least a "good" year.