![]() Hunters recently gained access, with the help of the “Large Tracts access program”, 300 thousand acres of private timberland in the Panhandle region, which makes the area even more attractive to elk hunting. Units 1 and 4 are believed to be the best. This is probably the best place in the state to go elk hunting. The Panhandle region is famous for elk hunting. In fact, it’s hard to find an elk zone in Idaho that would be bad for elk, however, some parts of the state have specific challenges. The “Mountain Monarchs” can be found not only in the timbered ridges in the northern part of the state, or in the mountains of the central Idaho, but also in the sagebrush deserts to the southeast and southwest. ![]() Every hunter has an equal chance to draw an elk tag. For controlled elk hunts, Idaho offers no bonus or preference points. Variation in season length, legal weapons, sex and age is astonishing and complicated to figure out. There are 28 elk hunting zones and 2 kinds of tags: “A” and “B”. The changes do not apply to controlled hunts, which generally provide the best opportunities for trophy elk hunting. Here’s a link to an interactive map that shows deer and elk hunting units with the number of tags available for each and other relevant information. If you don’t, the tag will return to the general pool. Once you’ve put your general season tag in your virtual shopping basket, you only have 5 minutes to buy it. Those who do will be put in a “waiting room”, from which the system will randomly select hunters to buy tags (making it effectively a random draw tag). For units where tags are typically sold out in a few minutes after sales start, IDF&G recommends hunters to log in 15 minutes in advance. For the season of 2021, all general license elk tags, including the most sought-after, are on sale starting December 1. The Fish & Game says the day when they sell the last elk tag happens earlier and earlier every year. In 2020, all non-resident elk tags were sold out by June 17. If you want to get a non-resident OTC elk tag in Idaho, you better shop early. This hasn’t been introduced yet, but if you are after both deer and elk tags, bear in mind that deer tags are issued for a specific unit only. To address concerns about overcrowding in “hot spot areas”, it was suggested that non-resident elk tags should be distributed by zone, not by unit. There is now a cap on non-resident hunters in each elk zone, that varies from no more than 15% to no more than 10% depending on the zone. To begin with, Idaho Department of Fish & Game has a new license vendor, so if you already have a profile in the IDF&G system, you need to have it updated. General non-resident elk and deer licenses for the 2021 hunting season go on sale December 1, 2020, and if you want to get one of those, you literally don’t have a minute to lose. Idaho still issues over 12,000 non-resident elk hunting tags each year, but their availability and some of the rules have changed in 2020. Idaho also issues OTC tags for “backcountry” areas – locations far removed from civilization but for that very reason dream magnets for many hunters – but the quotas for these areas have been reduced in recent years. Typically, unlimited OTC elk permits are issued for areas where the elk herds are over population objectives, feature an undesirable bull to cow ratio, or do considerable damage to agriculture. One thing that makes Idaho stand apart from most other elk hunting states is the wide availability of over-the-counter tags. General hunts accounted for a higher share of harvest (13,799 elk), but controlled hunts sported a significantly higher success rate: 38%. In 2019, hunter harvest was 20,532 elk, of which 11,418 were antlered, at an overall success rate of 22%. ![]() Over 100,000 hunters take part in the pursuit, thanks to generous allocation of licenses, and availability of over-the-counter tags. For the six years starting from 2014 hunters harvested over 20,000 elk each season. In spite of hard winters of the last few years, which hurt the mule deer populations, the elk are stable or growing and expanding their range in most of Idaho. To begin with, according to the latest estimates by Idaho Department of Fish & Game, the elk herds in the state number approximately 120,000 head. Idaho is a popular elk hunting destination. ![]() Want to hunt elk in Idaho? Good choice, but do you know about the latest changes in General-Season Non-Resident deer and elk tags? Get the latest update, along with other useful information about elk hunting in the Gem State! ![]()
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