Owyhee County Hunting, Units and Land

Owyhee County unit shares, both ways

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

Hunting rules in Owyhee County come unit by unit; 5 units are involved, and Unit 40 alone holds 30% of the county. The county holds at least nine tenths of Units 40, 41 and 42.

Along the margins, Unit 47 reach in by a few percent. Units spill across the line most often into Twin Falls County, which shares 2 units with the county. Bear hunters should note that Units 40, 41, 46, 42 and 47 do not appear in the general bear tables for fall 2026 or spring 2027.

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.

Owyhee County CWD units and wolf lines

Owyhee County has no CWD zone unit and no mandatory testing unit this season.

Owyhee County wolf season lines

Wolf zones here: Southern Idaho. 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; 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.

Owyhee County draw hunts and tags

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

41 controlled hunts have units that reach Owyhee County: 13 deer, 17 elk, 10 pronghorn and 1 bighorn sheep. Those hunt numbers hold 2,074 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 Owyhee County (13)

Elk draws reaching Owyhee County (17)

Pronghorn draws reaching Owyhee County (10)

Controlled bighorn sheep in Owyhee 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.

Owyhee County land by owner

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

3,548,193 acres, or 72% of the county, is the merged figure for public land where an Idaho tag works without asking a landowner. The largest contributor is BLM land, at 3,545,169 acres of Owyhee County. BLM ground adds 3,545,169 acres to the map of Owyhee County, and the Bruneau Field Office holds the biggest slice (1,375,108).

State endowment land, about 304,675 GIS acres, is measured separately: Land Board policy allows public recreation there if it does not harm the trust. Tribal ground covers some 137,068 acres and stays closed to non-members except under tribal authority.

Owyhee County tribal acres (closed)

• Duck Valley Reservation137,068 GIS acres · closed

Owyhee County WMAs, refuges and access areas

Parks and monuments in Owyhee County where guns stay cased

• Bruneau Dunes 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.

Owyhee County neighbours worth a look

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