Kootenai County Hunting Overview

Kootenai County unit shares, both ways

Click a unit for its hunt numbers, harvest and season lines.

The county is divided among 6 units, led by Unit 3 with 42% of its land. Nearly all of Unit 3 falls within Kootenai County.

Small slivers of Units 4A and 6 cross the line too. Expect to cross into Shoshone County on foot; 3 of these units run into it.

Unit shares from the IDFG Game Units layer overlaid on Census county polygons (GIS shares of land area, both ways); elk zone of each unit from the IDFG Elk Zones layer; wolf zones from the IDFG Wolf Zones layer; CWD units from the 2026 brochure; bear tables from the 2026 brochure. Checked November 12, 2026.

Kootenai County CWD status and wolf seasons

None of the county's units appears in the 2026 CWD rules.

Wolf hunting and trapping in Kootenai County

For wolf data IDFG groups units into zones, and Kootenai County falls in 1 wolf zone: Panhandle. Wolf seasons themselves are set by unit and land type. Trappers need both the trapping license and the wolf trapper education course, and may watch wolf sets with transmitting cameras since July 1, 2026.

CWD zone, transport and testing rules from the Big Game 2026 Seasons and Rules p. 9; 2026 changes from IDFG, What hunters need to know about CWD requirements for 2026; county units from the IDFG CWD zone rules; wolf rules from the 2026 brochure; wolf zones from the IDFG Wolf Zones layer. Checked November 12, 2026.

Drawn hunts reaching Kootenai County

Each hunt number links its IDFG Hunt Planner page with the exact boundary.

Counting every species, 44 controlled hunts touch the county this year: 14 deer, 14 elk and 16 moose. Summed across hunt numbers that is 1,852 tags, not all of them used inside the county.

Moose, bighorn sheep and mountain goat applications are taken April 1 to 30; spring bear January 15 to February 15. For moose, sheep and goat the brochure covers two years; the table shows the 2026 hunt.

Deer hunts with units in Kootenai County (14)

Elk tags drawn around Kootenai County (14)

Controlled moose in Kootenai County (16)

Hunt numbers, types, units, dates, bags and 2026 tags from the IDFG Hunt Planner hunt pages (each hunt number links its page) matched to the Idaho Big Game 2026 Seasons and Rules and the Moose, Bighorn Sheep and Mountain Goat 2025 and 2026 brochure; counties are whole units, so a hunt area can be smaller. Application periods from the 2026 brochure, the moose, sheep and goat brochure and the spring bear page. Checked November 12, 2026.

Kootenai County public hunting ground

Tribal, park and monument land is shown so you can plan around it, not on it.

Merge the WMA, national forest, grassland, BLM, refuge and preserve layers, take out tribal land, and Kootenai County shows 271,201 GIS acres of public hunting ground, 34% of its land. Sort the owners by size and national forest comes first, 251,192 acres within the county line. Most forest acres fall to the Coeur d'Alene River Ranger District of the Idaho Panhandle National Forests (247,426 acres).

On the BLM side, the Coeur d'Alene Field Office runs 11,841 acres of the county total of 11,841. About 33,705 acres of state endowment land lie in Kootenai County, shown on its own line rather than in the public total. Leave the 103,824 tribal acres out of any plan unless the tribe allows it; an Idaho tag does not open them.

Tribes holding land in Kootenai County

• Coeur d'Alene Reservation103,824 GIS acres · closed

Kootenai County hunting places with their own pages

Kootenai County: nearby places in other counties

• Hugas Creek & St. Joe River Basin (Access Yes!)37 miles, Access Yes! property
• Mica Creek Drainage on St. Joe River (Access Yes!)39 miles, Access Yes! property

Kootenai County closed sites

• Coeur d'Alene Parkway State ParkState park, closed
• Heyburn State ParkState park, closed
• Old Mission State ParkState park, closed

Acres are GIS measures of polygons with water over 2 square km removed, not official acreage: IDFG WMA layer, PAD-US 4.1 (forest, grassland, BLM, refuge, park, endowment, Reclamation, military, DOE and tribal land), IDFG Access Yes! 2026 layer, IDFG Large Tracts layer; refuges counted only when listed in 50 CFR 32.31; tribal rule from 18 U.S.C. 1165; closures from the 2026 brochure; Craters of the Moon from the NPS laws and policies page. Checked November 12, 2026.

Upcoming in Kootenai County

Inside the county line: 7 dates ahead (DU conservation dinner, RMEF chapter banquet, hunter and bowhunter certification, trapper certification and wolf trapper certification), checked November 11, 2026. 2 had no open seat when IDFG’s class page was checked.

Spotted a banquet flyer around here? Let us know

Close to Kootenai County

Ranked by the gap between Census interior points, these four Idaho counties lie closest; three statewide topics follow.