Unit research · Idaho Unit 48

Unit 48 — Idaho

86% public across 390,089 ac. Road access is easy — only 17% of the public land is more than a mile from a road. Almost none of the public land is landlocked.

Open in map

Deer draw odds (1)Elk draw odds (6)Moose draw odds (1)Odds and pins: free, no account

Unit 48Full map — ownership, roads, wind →

4,810–11,530 ft

elevation range

86%

public land

17%

of public >1 mi from a road

3,706 ac

landlocked public

1.41

road miles per mi²

752 mi

maintained trails

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

Tags & season

Draw hunts on this ground.

8 limited-entry deer, elk and moose hunts are drawn on Unit 48: 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 · 6 draw hunts (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 69%■ BLM 12%■ NGO 3%■ Other public 2%□ Private 14%

Unit area390,089 ac

Public land335,431 ac (86%)

Landlocked public3,706 ac (1.1%)

Deer draw pressure0.019 tags/mi² public (0.016 of total area)

Elk draw pressure0.43 tags/mi² public (0.36 of total area)

Moose draw pressure0.008 tags/mi² public (0.007 of total area)

Walk-in access10,610 ac

Motorized routes (MVUM + roads)857 mi

Maintained trails752 mi

Backcountry

Public land >1 mi from a road57,674 ac (17% of public)

Road density1.41 mi/mi²

Managed byUSFS 271k ac · BLM 46k ac · NGO 11k ac

Elevation4,810–11,530 ft

Median elevation7,280 ft

Median slope22°

Where the ground sits

4,810 ft11,530 ft

Tap or hover the bars for each elevation band

Slope mix

Which way the slopes face

N 21%

E 29%

S 27%

W 22%

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

148,557 ac of this unit has burned — 38% 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 STANLEY RANGER STATION, 69 km from the unit’s center and ~800 ft below its median elevation — expect the unit to run colder. NOAA ISD-Lite hourly observations.

Harvest — agency survey estimates

Deer · 2025 · by unit

30% success

686 taken by 2,309 hunters · 11,643 days afield

664 bucks · 22 does

Deer hunter success · 2015–2025 · 34% → 30%

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 4967% public · 28% remote Unit 4451% public · 3% remote Unit 4397% public · 9% remote Unit 5269% public · 2% remote Unit 36A97% public · 38% remote Unit 5083% public · 30% remote

Ready to scout it?

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

Open Unit 48 in the map

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