Idaho County Hunting Overview

Idaho County unit shares, both ways

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

Hunting rules in Idaho County come unit by unit; 18 units are involved, and Unit 17 alone holds 18% of the county. The county holds at least nine tenths of Units 17, 12, 15, 14, 20 and 5 more.

Along the margins, Units 23, 16, 19A, 13, 11A and 7 more reach in by a few percent. Units spill across the line most often into Clearwater County, which shares 4 units with the 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.

Idaho County CWD units and wolf lines

Idaho County holds part of the CWD Management Zone: Units 14 and 18. Deer killed in the zone must be tested within 10 days of harvest, and whole carcasses of deer, elk or moose may not leave it. Outside the zone, deer taken in Unit 23 must still be tested for CWD within 10 days of harvest. On December 30, 2025, IDFG reported the first detection of CWD in Unit 15, south of Grangeville; Unit 15 is not a 2026 zone or mandatory testing unit.

Idaho County wolf season lines

Wolf zones here: Selway, Lolo, Dworshak – Elk City, Middle Fork, McCall – Weiser and Palouse – Hells Canyon. 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; Unit 15 detection from IDFG news, December 30, 2025; 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.

Idaho County draw hunts and tags

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

103 controlled hunts have units that reach Idaho County: 39 deer, 31 elk, 18 moose, 9 bighorn sheep, 3 mountain goat and 3 black bear. Those hunt numbers hold 5,261 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 Idaho County (39)

Elk draws reaching Idaho County (31)

Moose hunts with units in Idaho County (18)

Controlled bighorn sheep in Idaho County (9)

Mountain goat draws reaching Idaho County (3)

Controlled black bear in Idaho County (3)

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.

Idaho County land by owner

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

4,543,787 acres, or 84% of the county, is the merged figure for public land where an Idaho tag works without asking a landowner. National forest carries the most weight, with 4,453,187 acres inside Idaho County. National forest ground splits among 11 districts, the biggest being the Moose Creek Ranger District at near 825,016 acres.

BLM ground adds 93,277 acres to the map of Idaho County, and the Cottonwood Field Office holds the biggest slice (93,277). State endowment land, about 74,688 GIS acres, is measured separately: Land Board policy allows public recreation there if it does not harm the trust. Tribal ground covers some 187,322 acres and stays closed to non-members except under tribal authority. Plan routes around Nez Perce National Historical Park, which IDFG lists as closed.

Tribal land in Idaho County, closed to non-members

• Nez Perce Reservation187,322 GIS acres · closed

Idaho County WMAs, refuges and access areas

• Moose Creek Ranger DistrictRanger district
• Red River Ranger DistrictRanger district
• North Fork Ranger DistrictRanger district
• North Fork Ranger DistrictRanger district
• McCall Ranger DistrictRanger district
• Salmon River Ranger DistrictRanger district
• West Fork Ranger DistrictRanger district
• New Meadows Ranger DistrictRanger district
• Coeur d'Alene DistrictBLM district
• Cottonwood Field OfficeBLM field office

Idaho County places closed to all hunting

• Nez Perce National Historical ParkPark Service, closed
• Glade Creek 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.

Idaho County event listings

County total as of November 11, 2026: 1 date ahead (RMEF chapter banquet).

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

Around Idaho County

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