Unit research · Idaho Unit 42

Unit 42 — Idaho

96% public across 859,257 ac. Road access is easy — only 24% of the public land is more than a mile from a road. Almost none of the public land is landlocked.

Open in map

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

Unit 42Full map — ownership, roads, wind →

4,190–6,810 ft

elevation range

96%

public land

24%

of public >1 mi from a road

678 ac

landlocked public

0.72

road miles per mi²

1,102 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 bighorn sheep, deer and elk hunts are drawn on Unit 42: 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 · 1 draw hunt (2026)$31.00 resident · $369.75 nonresident

Elk tag · 1 draw hunt (2026)$43.00 resident · $669.75 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 and elk 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 bighorn sheep →Draw odds for Idaho deer →Draw odds for Idaho elk →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

■ BLM 92%■ SDOL 3%□ Private 4%

Unit area859,257 ac

Public land822,251 ac (96%)

Landlocked public678 ac (0.1%)

Bighorn sheep draw pressure0.002 tags/mi² public (0.002 of total area)

Deer draw pressure0.039 tags/mi² public (0.037 of total area)

Elk draw pressure0.012 tags/mi² public (0.011 of total area)

Motorized routes (MVUM + roads)960 mi

Maintained trails1,102 mi

Backcountry

Public land >1 mi from a road195,253 ac (24% of public)

Road density0.72 mi/mi²

Managed byBLM 793k ac · SDOL 29k ac

Elevation4,190–6,810 ft

Median elevation5,320 ft

Median slope2°

Where the ground sits

4,190 ft6,810 ft

Tap or hover the bars for each elevation band

Slope mix

Which way the slopes face

N 22%

E 26%

S 23%

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

236,013 ac of this unit has burned — 27% of the unit. USGS migration corridors cover 1%. The full report assembles it into one printable document and keeps it current as the facts change.

Open the report →

Harvest — agency survey estimates

Deer · 2025 · by unit

13% success

33 taken by 251 hunters · 887 days afield

33 bucks (bucks only)

Deer hunter success · 2015–2025 · 41% → 13%

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 4180% public · 12% remote Unit 4079% public · 7% remote Unit 4676% public · 7% remote Unit 3838% public · 1% remote Unit 4775% public · 4% remote Unit 4564% public · 8% remote

Ready to scout it?

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

Open Unit 42 in the map

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