Ada County Hunting Guide

Ada County unit shares, both ways

IDFG gives units numbers, not names, and the lines follow roads, rivers and ridges.

Hunting rules in Ada County come unit by unit; 3 units are involved, and Unit 38 alone holds 77% of the county. Units spill across the line most often into Elmore County, which shares 2 units with the county.

Bear hunters should note that Unit 38 does not appear in the general bear tables for fall 2026 or spring 2027.

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.

Ada County CWD units and wolf lines

Ada County has no CWD zone unit and no mandatory testing unit this season.

Ada County wolf season lines

Wolf zones here: Southern Idaho, Sawtooth and McCall – Weiser. They are data analysis units; the dates come from unit and land type. A trapping license and wolf trapper education are needed to trap wolves, and transmitting cameras may be used to check wolf traps from 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.

Ada County draw hunts and tags

Units here lists only the units of each hunt that lie in the county.

21 controlled hunts have units that reach Ada County: 10 deer, 6 elk, 4 pronghorn and 1 mountain goat. Those hunt numbers hold 2,357 tags between them, whole-hunt numbers rather than county shares.

Deer, elk, pronghorn and fall bear applications ran May 1 to June 5, with a second period August 5 to 15 for leftover hunts; tags are drawn at random. The moose, bighorn and goat rows are 2026 hunts printed in the 2025 and 2026 brochure.

Controlled deer in Ada County (10)

Elk draws reaching Ada County (6)

Pronghorn draws reaching Ada County (4)

Mountain goat draws reaching Ada County (1)

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.

Ada County land by owner

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

288,924 acres, or 43% of the county, is the merged figure for public land where an Idaho tag works without asking a landowner. BLM land accounts for 271,830 of those acres, more than any other owner here. For forest roads, fire closures and camping rules, the Mountain Home Ranger District covers about 3,795 acres of the county.

BLM ground adds 271,830 acres to the map of Ada County, and the Four Rivers Field Office holds the biggest slice (271,830). State endowment land, about 29,900 GIS acres, is measured separately: Land Board policy allows public recreation there if it does not harm the trust.

Ada County WMAs, refuges and access areas

Public places past the Ada County line

• Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge22 miles, wildlife refuge
• Montour Wildlife Management Area33 miles, IDFG WMA
• Letha – Payette River Access (Access Yes!)37 miles, Access Yes! property

Ada County parks with no hunting

• Eagle Island State ParkState park, closed
• Lucky Peak 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.

Ada County event listings

This county lists 10 dates ahead; the first is 2026 Boise Fall Conservation Dinner on November 20, 2026. Register-Ed showed 4 of these classes with no seat left; the button opens the live listing.

Know an Idaho date close by that is missing? Send it in

Counties near Ada County

Four county guides picked by the shortest centre-to-centre distance, then three statewide planning pages.