Just knowing what area to apply for seems to be the biggest challenge this point. I don’t know the area and definitely don’t now what areas to apply for. We want a area that will give us good chance of getting drawn while still having a pretty good chance of filling those tags. I’m not afraid of hiking a long way in and don’t have any interest in road hunting.
Sadly, a lot of people (mostly out of staters) are primarily road hunters. You'll see ton of those lazy "hunters". Are you looking to fill tags or are you looking for the best trophy potential areas?
Check resources like gohunt.com or Eastman's hunting journal. People don't want to spend $50-$150 pay for research but will spend thousands of dollars on hunting and traveling 3000 miles.