Bonner County for Idaho Hunters

Bonner County hunting units

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

Idaho sets big game seasons unit by unit, and Bonner County touches 4 of them; 67% of the county lies in Unit 1. Unit 4A lies almost entirely inside the county, so its unit page reads as a guide to local ground.

Unit 4 only clips the edge, each under 5% of the county. 3 units straddle the line with Kootenai County, more than with any other county.

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.

Chronic wasting disease and wolves in Bonner County

The 2026 CWD zone and testing units all lie outside Bonner County. Bonner County contains part of Unit 1, but the zone portion of Unit 1 lies in Boundary County, east of the Selkirk crest.

Bonner County wolf zones and wolf seasons

On the wolf zone layer Bonner County reads Panhandle; season dates depend on the unit and the land type. To trap a wolf, hold a trapping license and complete wolf trapper education; transmitting cameras became legal for wolf trap checks on 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.

Bonner County controlled hunts for 2026

Hunts whose units reach the county; the hunt area itself can be smaller than the unit.

IDFG hunt numbers with a unit in Bonner County add up to 40, namely 15 deer, 8 elk, 16 moose and 1 black bear. Their 2026 tag counts add up to 2,345, a sum that includes tags for ground outside Bonner County.

Idaho draws controlled hunts at random: apply May 1 to June 5 for deer, elk, pronghorn and fall bear, April 1 to 30 for moose, sheep and goat. Moose, bighorn sheep and goat hunts below follow the 2025 and 2026 brochure (2026 season).

Deer draws reaching Bonner County (15)

Bonner County: controlled elk (8)

Moose tags drawn around Bonner County (16)

Black bear draws reaching Bonner 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.

Bonner County land by owner

Private land in Access Yes! and Large Tracts is open only on program terms.

The merged map of public hunting land in Bonner County reaches 509,445 acres, 46% of the county surface. No owner outweighs national forest here: 492,122 acres. For forest roads, fire closures and camping rules, the Sandpoint Ranger District covers about 264,050 acres of the county.

12,483 acres are BLM-managed, and 12,483 of those report to the Coeur d'Alene Field Office. Endowment land (174,945 GIS acres) sits outside the merged total; the IDFG brochure lists it among its access programs.

Bonner County WMAs, refuges and access areas

• Coeur d'Alene Field OfficeBLM field office

Public places past the Bonner County line

• Farragut Wildlife Management Area24 miles, IDFG WMA
• Farragut State Park25 miles, state park (open)
• Kootenai National Wildlife Refuge29 miles, wildlife refuge

Bonner County ground off the hunting map

• Enid Nesbitt Memorial State ParkState park, closed
• Priest Lake State ParkState park, closed
• Round Lake 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.

Bonner County event listings

On November 11, 2026 the county showed 2 dates ahead, covering DU sportsman’s party and RMEF chapter banquet.

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Bonner County and its nearest counties

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