Unit research · Idaho Unit 49

Unit 49 — Idaho

67% public across 508,947 ac. Real backcountry here — 28% of the public land sits more than a mile from any road. Watch the checkerboard: 19,087 ac of public land has no public route in.

Open in map

Deer draw odds (1)Elk draw odds (4)Pronghorn draw odds (2)Odds and pins: free, no account

Unit 49Full map — ownership, roads, wind →

4,760–11,700 ft

elevation range

67%

public land

28%

of public >1 mi from a road

19,087 ac

landlocked public

1.01

road miles per mi²

432 mi

maintained trails

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

Tags & season

Draw hunts on this ground.

7 limited-entry deer, elk and pronghorn hunts are drawn on Unit 49: 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 · 4 draw hunts (2026)$43.00 resident · $669.75 nonresident

Pronghorn tag · 2 draw hunts (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 deer, elk and pronghorn draw calendar

May 1, 2027 — applications open
May 1, 2027 — applications open
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 pronghorn →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 31%■ USFS 27%■ SDOL 7%■ Other public 2%□ Private 33%

Unit area508,947 ac

Public land341,986 ac (67%)

Landlocked public19,087 ac (5.6%)

Deer draw pressure0.020 tags/mi² public (0.013 of total area)

Elk draw pressure0.56 tags/mi² public (0.36 of total area)

Pronghorn draw pressure0.050 tags/mi² public (0.031 of total area)

Walk-in access4,918 ac

Motorized routes (MVUM + roads)806 mi

Maintained trails432 mi

Backcountry

Public land >1 mi from a road96,223 ac (28% of public)

Road density1.01 mi/mi²

Managed byBLM 157k ac · USFS 139k ac · SDOL 34k ac

Elevation4,760–11,700 ft

Median elevation6,420 ft

Median slope19°

Where the ground sits

4,760 ft11,700 ft

Tap or hover the bars for each elevation band

Slope mix

Which way the slopes face

N 18%

E 24%

S 29%

W 29%

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

78,845 ac of this unit has burned — 15% 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, 101 km from the unit’s center. NOAA ISD-Lite hourly observations.

Harvest — agency survey estimates

Deer · 2025 · by unit

31% success

722 taken by 2,322 hunters · 10,375 days afield

707 bucks · 16 does

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

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 4886% public · 17% remote Unit 5083% public · 30% remote Unit 5269% public · 2% remote Unit 52A91% public · 33% remote Unit 5192% public · 30% remote Unit 4451% public · 3% remote

Ready to scout it?

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

Open Unit 49 in the map

What happens nextMay 1 — Deer applications open · details →May 1 — Elk applications open · details →May 1 — Pronghorn applications open · details →