Since we usually hunt an out of state and rarely hunt a unit more than once or twice, I'm always considering the harvest success when selecting a spot to go. With that said I don't just take things at face value.
Antelope: On a quality antelope hunt with tons of animals, success rates should run north of 80%-85%. if success is own under something like 70% I figure this is an area that will take some effort to get a buck, and is likely not a slam dunk to see a ton of antelope in that area. I would want to do a lot more research on that area.
Deer and elk: I have been in high demand trophy units with lots of animals and still see guys who won't leave their ATV. I don't care where you hunt, other than a couple extremely glassable units I can think of, where bulls can be easily found from roads. When we elk hunt, I know we will put in a lot of effort. For these tags, I tend to take the success rate, double it and figure that is roughly our chance to kill a bull. For example if the elk harvest rate is 25% I figure we have about even odds of killing a bull. Like IKIC said, I like looking at antler point data as well if available. Another thing to consider is that if there are very low tag numbers for a hunt, you might see wide swings in harvest success for no other reason than only a certain percentage of the hunters report and the sample size is low. Also the lower the motivation to put out efforts, like on an antlerless tag, the more the harvest can be biased low.
Once In A Lifetime Trophy Species (sheep, mountain goat, moose, etc): I think the harvest stats tend to be much more accurate on these since there isn't the motivation to falsify reporting (people who don't want others hunting their "spot") and the reporting requirements tend to be more stringent. Again I look at data that quantifies the antler or horn configuration as well.
