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Units / Idaho / Unit 36A

Unit research · Idaho Unit 36A

Unit 36A — Idaho

97% public across 494,286 ac. Real backcountry here — 38% of the public land sits more than a mile from any road. Almost none of the public land is landlocked.

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Unit 36AFull map — ownership, roads, wind →
5,000–11,740 ft

elevation range

97%

public land

38%

of public >1 mi from a road

6,544 ac

landlocked public

0.63

road miles per mi²

380 mi

maintained trails

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

Tags & season

Draw hunts on this ground.

16 limited-entry bighorn sheep, deer, elk, moose, mountain goat and pronghorn hunts are drawn on Unit 36A: apply in the Idaho draw, by the agency's deadline below.

Bighorn sheep tag · 1 draw hunt (2026)$216.50 resident · $2,672.50 nonresident
Deer tag · 4 draw hunts (2026)$31.00 resident · $369.75 nonresident
Elk tag · 5 draw hunts (2026)$43.00 resident · $669.75 nonresident
Moose tag · 1 draw hunt (2026)$216.50 resident · $2,672.50 nonresident
Mountain goat tag · 4 draw hunts (2026)$216.50 resident · $2,672.50 nonresident
Pronghorn tag · 1 draw hunt (2026)$42.75 resident · $360.75 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 bighorn sheep, deer, elk, moose, mountain goat and pronghorn draw calendar

  • Apr 1, 2027applications open
  • Apr 1, 2027applications open
  • Apr 1, 2027applications open

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 51%BLM 42%SDOL 3%□ Private 3%
Unit area494,286 ac
Public land479,793 ac (97%)
Landlocked public6,544 ac (1.4%)
Bighorn sheep draw pressure0.003 tags/mi² public (0.003 of total area)
Deer draw pressure0.007 tags/mi² public (0.006 of total area)
Moose draw pressure0.001 tags/mi² public (0.001 of total area)
Motorized routes (MVUM + roads)486 mi
Maintained trails380 mi

Backcountry

Public land >1 mi from a road182,472 ac (38% of public)
Road density0.63 mi/mi²
Managed byUSFS 254k ac · BLM 209k ac · SDOL 16k ac
Elevation5,000–11,740 ft
Median elevation7,690 ft
Median slope19°

Where the ground sits

5,000 ft11,740 ft

Tap or hover the bars for each elevation band

Slope mix

Which way the slopes face

N 28%
E 28%
S 18%
W 26%

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

6,477 ac of this unit has burned — 1% 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

Monthly normal highs and lows, °F28° high8° lowJFMAMJJASOND

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

Measured at STANLEY RANGER STATION, 47 km from the unit’s center and ~1,200 ft below its median elevation — expect the unit to run colder. NOAA ISD-Lite hourly observations.

Harvest — agency survey estimates

Deer · 2025 · by unit

26% success

135 taken by 526 hunters · 2,826 days afield

119 bucks · 16 does

Deer hunter success · 2015–2025 · 31% → 26%

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)

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 36B93% public · 6% remoteUnit 3697% public · 27% remoteUnit 3790% public · 21% remoteUnit 4886% public · 17% remoteUnit 5083% public · 30% remoteUnit 37A94% public · 39% remote

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What happens nextApr 1Bighorn sheep applications open · details →Apr 1Moose applications open · details →Apr 1Mountain goat applications open · details →
Watch this unit — freeReturned and leftover tags, new legal closures, fire near the unit, weather warnings — by email. One unit free, no card.