Butte County Hunting, Units and Land

Butte County hunting units

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

Of the 6 units on the county map, Unit 51 takes in the most ground, about 28%. Clark County shares the most units with Butte County (3), so a hunt that starts here often ends there.

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.

Butte County disease testing and wolf hunting

No unit in Butte County is in the CWD Management Zone or on the 2026 mandatory deer testing list.

Wolf zones reaching Butte County

Southern Mountains, Southern Idaho and Beaverhead are the wolf zones for Butte County, but the season lines below go unit by unit. The wolf rules for 2026-27 add transmitting cameras for trap checks from July 1, 2026; trapping still requires a trapping license and wolf trapper education.

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.

2026 controlled hunts around Butte County

Grouped by species, then by opening date.

Drawn hunts with ground in or around Butte County: 61 in all (7 deer, 26 elk, 16 pronghorn, 4 moose, 4 bighorn sheep and 4 mountain goat). Tags for these hunts come to 2,635 this year; a hunt area can cover only part of a unit.

Every controlled hunt is filled by random draw, with deer and elk applications due by June 5 and moose, sheep and goat by April 30. Moose, sheep and goat dates come from the two-year 2025 and 2026 brochure, with the 2026 year applied.

Deer tags drawn around Butte County (7)

Butte County elk hunt numbers (26)

Butte County pronghorn hunt numbers (16)

Moose draws reaching Butte County (4)

Bighorn sheep tags drawn around Butte County (4)

Butte County mountain goat hunt numbers (4)

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.

Butte County public hunting ground

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

By the merged GIS count, 59% of Butte County (838,724 acres) belongs to an owner that opens it to hunting under Idaho seasons. The largest contributor is BLM land, at 498,060 acres of Butte County. For forest roads, fire closures and camping rules, the Lost River Ranger District covers about 216,384 acres of the county.

The Upper Snake Field Office looks after most of the 498,060 BLM acres inside Butte County, about 482,600 of them. State trust land managed by the Idaho Department of Lands covers about 12,862 acres here, listed apart from the public total. Hunting stops at the boundary of Craters of the Moon National Monument and Craters of the Moon National Preserve. Do not treat Craters of the Moon as one place: hunting is prohibited in the NPS monument but permitted in the preserve and on the surrounding BLM land.

Butte County hunting places with their own pages

Butte County: nearby places in other counties

• Telfer Inc. (Access Yes!)33 miles, Access Yes! property
• Muldoon Grazing Assoc. (Access Yes!)38 miles, Access Yes! property

Parks and monuments in Butte County where guns stay cased

• Craters of the Moon National MonumentPark Service, 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.

Butte County neighbours worth a look

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