Nez Perce County, Idaho Hunting

Nez Perce County by hunting unit

Of county: how much of the county lies in the unit. Of unit: how much of the unit lies in the county.

Seasons here follow unit lines rather than the county line: 4 units cross it, Unit 11 biggest at 52%. The county also takes in narrow edges of Unit 8A.

Of the counties sharing units with Nez Perce County, Clearwater County leads with 3.

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.

CWD and wolf rules for Nez Perce County

Hunters in Nez Perce County face no CWD zone or testing requirement in 2026.

Nez Perce County wolf lines by unit

The county's units belong to 1 wolf zone (Palouse – Hells Canyon); seasons follow units and whether the land is public or private. Wolf trapping requires the trapping license and wolf trapper education, and transmitting trail cameras are allowed for checks 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.

Nez Perce County hunt numbers by species

Tags are 2026 counts for the whole hunt.

Hunts whose units reach the county in 2026 total 27, made up of 16 deer, 5 elk, 4 moose and 2 bighorn sheep. The tag total for these hunts is 1,736 in 2026, counted by hunt rather than by county.

A second application period, August 5 to 15, covers tags left after the first draw, and controlled tags must be bought by August 1. The once-in-a-lifetime species use the 2025 and 2026 brochure dates for the 2026 hunt.

Nez Perce County: controlled deer (16)

Controlled elk in Nez Perce County (5)

Nez Perce County moose hunt numbers (4)

Nez Perce County: controlled bighorn sheep (2)

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.

Nez Perce County public land, owner by owner

Solid points on the map are places in the county; hollow ones lie just outside it.

Open public ground in Nez Perce County totals 117,728 GIS acres once overlapping layers are counted once; that is 22% of the county. IDFG WMAs carries the most weight, with 117,682 acres inside Nez Perce County. Roughly 2,675 forest acres in the county belong to the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area (Wallowa-Whitman National Forest), the largest of 2 districts.

The field office with the largest BLM footprint in Nez Perce County is the Cottonwood Field Office, at 27,479 of 27,480 acres. The 7,705 endowment acres are trust land managed for revenue, so they get their own row. Reservation and trust land (266,222 acres) is closed to state-licensed hunters without tribal permission, and it is not in the public total. Nez Perce National Historical Park is park land where hunting is closed.

Nez Perce County reservations and trust land

• Nez Perce Reservation266,222 GIS acres · closed

Nez Perce County public places by owner

Open land a short drive from Nez Perce County

• Genesee Area – Genesee Juliaetta Rd (Access Yes!)17 miles, Access Yes! property
• Fanning and Wahl Area (Access Yes!)18 miles, Access Yes! property
• Genesee Area – Genesee-Juliaetta/Wahl rd (Access Yes!)18 miles, Access Yes! property
• Peterson Loop (Access Yes!)22 miles, Access Yes! property
• Danielson and Swenson Road Area (Access Yes!)22 miles, Access Yes! property
• Peterson Loop (Access Yes!)23 miles, Access Yes! property

Nez Perce County places closed to all hunting

• Nez Perce National Historical ParkPark Service, closed
• Hells Gate 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.

Nez Perce County event listings

County total as of November 11, 2026: 3 dates ahead (RMEF chapter banquet, trapper certification and wolf trapper certification). 1 had no open seat when IDFG’s class page was checked.

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Around Nez Perce County

The four cards are the counties whose middles sit nearest this one; the buttons open statewide topics.