Franklin County Hunting Overview

Franklin 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 Franklin County touches 5 of them; 39% of the county lies in Unit 77. Unit 77 lies almost entirely inside the county, so its unit page reads as a guide to local ground.

Unit 78 only clips the edge, each under 5% of the county. 3 units straddle the line with Bear Lake 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 Franklin County

The 2026 CWD zone and testing units all lie outside Franklin County.

Franklin County wolf zones and wolf seasons

On the wolf zone layer Franklin County reads Southern Idaho; 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.

Franklin 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 Franklin County add up to 23, namely 11 deer, 7 elk and 5 moose. Their 2026 tag counts add up to 1,356, a sum that includes tags for ground outside Franklin 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 Franklin County (11)

Franklin County: controlled elk (7)

Moose tags drawn around Franklin County (5)

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.

Franklin 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 Franklin County reaches 128,764 acres, 30% of the county surface. National forest accounts for 115,149 of those acres, more than any other owner here. For forest roads, fire closures and camping rules, the Montpelier Ranger District covers about 99,779 acres of the county.

13,621 acres are BLM-managed, and 13,621 of those report to the Pocatello Field Office. Endowment land (12,568 GIS acres) sits outside the merged total; the IDFG brochure lists it among its access programs.

Franklin County WMAs, refuges and access areas

Public places past the Franklin County line

• Bear Lake National Wildlife Refuge26 miles, wildlife refuge
• Montpelier Wildlife Management Area31 miles, IDFG WMA
• Georgetown Summit Wildlife Management Area32 miles, IDFG WMA
• Portneuf River (Access Yes!)33 miles, Access Yes! property
• Barker Ag (Access Yes!)35 miles, Access Yes! property
• Daniels Valley (Access Yes!)36 miles, Access Yes! property

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.

Counties near Franklin County

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