Unit research · Idaho Unit 59

Unit 59 — Idaho

69% public across 232,928 ac. Road access is easy — only 4% of the public land is more than a mile from a road. Almost none of the public land is landlocked.

Open in map

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

Unit 59Full map — ownership, roads, wind →

5,100–10,150 ft

elevation range

69%

public land

of public >1 mi from a road

117 ac

landlocked public

2.27

road miles per mi²

198 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 elk, moose and pronghorn hunts are drawn on Unit 59: apply in the Idaho draw, by the agency's deadline below.

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

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 elk, moose and pronghorn 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 elk →Draw odds for Idaho moose →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

■ USFS 35%■ BLM 33%■ SDOL 2%□ Private 31%

Unit area232,928 ac

Public land161,396 ac (69%)

Landlocked public117 ac (0.1%)

Moose draw pressure0.020 tags/mi² public (0.014 of total area)

Motorized routes (MVUM + roads)828 mi

Maintained trails198 mi

Backcountry

Public land >1 mi from a road6,514 ac (4% of public)

Road density2.27 mi/mi²

Managed byUSFS 81k ac · BLM 77k ac · SDOL 4k ac

Elevation5,100–10,150 ft

Median elevation6,860 ft

Median slope8°

Where the ground sits

5,100 ft10,150 ft

Tap or hover the bars for each elevation band

Slope mix

Which way the slopes face

N 14%

E 29%

S 32%

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

38,780 ac of this unit has burned — 17% 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 REXBURG-MADISON COUNTY APT, 77 km from the unit’s center and ~2,000 ft below its median elevation — expect the unit to run colder. NOAA ISD-Lite hourly observations.

Harvest — agency survey estimates

Deer · 2025 · by unit

29% success

340 taken by 1,177 hunters · 5,234 days afield

338 bucks · 2 does

Deer hunter success · 2015–2025 · 29% → 29%

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 59A87% public · 4% remote Unit 60A52% public · 2% remote Unit 5897% public · 14% remote Unit 6182% public · 11% remote Unit 6365% public · 18% remote Unit 6069% public · 5% remote

Ready to scout it?

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

Open Unit 59 in the map

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