Unit research · Idaho Unit 16

Unit 16 — Idaho

80% public across 248,983 ac. Real backcountry here — 30% of the public land sits more than a mile from any road. Almost none of the public land is landlocked.

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Deer draw odds (1)Elk draw odds (1)Moose draw odds (1)Odds and pins: free, no account

Unit 16Full map — ownership, roads, wind →

1,240–7,700 ft

elevation range

80%

public land

30%

of public >1 mi from a road

725 ac

landlocked public

0.94

road miles per mi²

404 mi

maintained trails

Computed from primary government data by the open pipeline. See the code →

Tags & season

Draw hunts on this ground.

3 limited-entry deer, elk and moose hunts are drawn on Unit 16: apply in the Idaho draw, by the agency's deadline below.

Deer tag · 1 draw hunt (2026)$31.00 resident · $369.75 nonresident

Elk tag · 1 draw hunt (2026)$43.00 resident · $669.75 nonresident

Moose tag · 1 draw hunt (2026)$216.50 resident · $2,672.50 nonresident

Plus: Idaho hunting licence$15.75 resident · $185.00 nonresident

Season dates: see Idaho Department of Fish and Game's regulations

IDFG — Licence, tag and permit costs, residents ↗

Idaho deer, elk and moose draw calendar

Apr 1, 2027 — applications open
Apr 30, 2027 — application deadline
May 1, 2027 — applications open

IDFG — Licence, tag and permit costs, residents ↗Draw odds for Idaho deer →Draw odds for Idaho elk →Draw odds for Idaho moose →How the Idaho draw works →

Fees and draw dates from Idaho Department of Fish and Game, 2026, verified 2026-08-13. Tag type from the agency's published draw statistics: a unit that appears in none of them has no limited-entry hunt we know of. Source: IDFG — Licence, tag and permit costs, residents · IDFG — Licence, tag and permit costs, nonresidents · IDFG — Controlled hunt application information.

Land & access

■ USFS 78%■ SDOL 1%■ FWS 0%□ Private 20%

Unit area248,983 ac

Public land198,766 ac (80%)

Landlocked public725 ac (0.4%)

Moose draw pressure0.003 tags/mi² public (0.003 of total area)

Motorized routes (MVUM + roads)367 mi

Maintained trails404 mi

Backcountry

Public land >1 mi from a road59,819 ac (30% of public)

Road density0.94 mi/mi²

Managed byUSFS 195k ac · SDOL 4k ac · FWS 0k ac

Elevation1,240–7,700 ft

Median elevation3,850 ft

Median slope21°

Where the ground sits

1,240 ft7,700 ft

Tap or hover the bars for each elevation band

Slope mix

Which way the slopes face

N 26%

E 24%

S 22%

W 28%

Share of ground steeper than 5° — flat ground has no facing

North slopes hold shade, cover and snow; south slopes open first.

USGS 3DEP 1 arc-second (30 m), slope at native resolution in a local metric projection, sampled on a 200 m grid. See the code →

Unit intelligence report

45,737 ac of this unit has burned — 18% of the unit. The full report assembles it into one printable document and keeps it current as the facts change.

Open the report →

Season conditions — measured, not vibes

Historical temperatures · 2000–2025

Normals for 2000–2025 — tap or hover for a month

Measured at LEWISTON-NEZ PERCE COUNTY AIRPORT, 114 km from the unit’s center and ~2,400 ft below its median elevation — expect the unit to run colder. NOAA ISD-Lite hourly observations.

Harvest — agency survey estimates

Deer · 2025 · by unit

44% success

397 taken by 901 hunters · 4,828 days afield

313 bucks · 84 does

Deer hunter success · 2015–2025 · 51% → 44%

IDFG harvest by Game Management Unit, one row per unit per season per take method. Success rates and hunter days are published by IDFG and carried verbatim wherever a row comes straight from the department; nothing here is derived except where several hunts share one area, and there the rate is recomputed from the summed hunters and harvest because a per-hunt percentage does not survive being added up. Where a cell is blank IDFG suppressed a small sample, and it stays blank rather than being back-computed. Take method ("Any Weapon", "Archery", "Muzzleloader") is the variant for general seasons and the rows are NOT summable — each is its own season, not a component of a total. IDFG's own "All Weapons Combined" row is carried as the `all` variant, so the total is the department's arithmetic rather than ours. Idaho's draw-only animals have no general season at all. Moose, mountain goat and both bighorn herds appear under a `controlled` variant covering the limited-entry hunts, and the two sheep herds stay separate — a Rocky Mountain and a California bighorn are different animals in different mountains, with their own once-in-a-lifetime rules. Source: IDFG Hunt Planner — general hunt harvest statistics by unit (deer) · IDFG Hunt Planner map service — HarvestStats_mainTbl (all other species).

How these numbers are made

public_land_pct = public_area / unit_area
landlocked = public ∖ reachable(roads, corners)
remote = public ∖ buffer(roads, 1 mi)
# AGPL — read the pipeline →

Computed, not curated: no paid research team, no opinions dressed as data. If a number looks wrong, file an issue — the fix ships for everyone.

Nearby units

Unit 1593% public · 28% remote Unit 16A100% public · 76% remote Unit 11A1% public · 0% remote Unit 10A48% public · 2% remote Unit 1466% public · 13% remote Unit 1295% public · 52% remote

Ready to scout it?

Everything on this page, live on the map — ownership, boundaries, roads, and your own waypoints.

Open Unit 16 in the map

What happens nextApr 1 — Moose applications open · details →Apr 30 — Moose application deadline · details →May 1 — Deer applications open · details →