The pioneer zone is a decent area to hunt deer in. In my opinion, the whole state has good deer areas. The thing about the Pioneer zone is it is centrally located to the three biggest poplulation areas in the state (Idaho Falls/Poky, Twin Falls and Boise. It is also only a few hours over the border from Utah. The Utah boys love hunting and their state is tricky to do so in. So October 9th is a huge wave of trucks headed north.
The Pioneer zone did have a solid deer population though, until this year. I have a feeling we had around a 30% deer mortality this winter, with 100% fawn loss. Hiking around this spring, I can tell the deer took a huge hit.
The harvest ratio is pretty good in there, but factor in the majority of those bucks are a 1 1/2 year old bucks. We won't have many of those this year. I would personally check out areas with good harvest statistics matched with low snow pack totals this year. The winter was just too tough in the area in my opinion