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Idaho Elk Mule Deer

Unit 31 (Brownlee Zone)

Idaho Hunting Guide — Elk, Mule Deer

Unit 31 lies in Washington County and covers about 597 square miles. Named ground inside it runs from 2,066 to 7,578 feet. Idaho Fish and Game's harvest estimates put elk success here as high as 20%. Federal land covers about 41% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

🏔️
41%
Public Land
⛰️
2,145–6,060 ft
Sampled elevation

Build your own PDF hunt guide for Unit 31

Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Idaho Unit 31 guide around your hunt: three ranked spots with morning, afternoon and evening plays, a day-by-day plan, topo maps with every pin numbered, a camp and access plan, the legal and retrieval rules for this unit, shot discipline, a meat-care and pack-out plan, and a pre-trip checklist. Every coordinate sits on land recorded as public.

Free accounts get one report a year with the top spot unlocked. ProHunt Pro includes unlimited reports, all three spots, the full camp plan, and GPX/KML downloads for onX and Google Earth. Prefer to see one first? Open the builder and pick any unit.

Elk Hunting in Unit 31

Unit 31 lies in Washington County and covers about 597 square miles. Named ground inside it runs from 2,066 to 7,578 feet. Idaho Fish and Game's harvest estimates put elk success here as high as 20%. Federal land covers about 41% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

Where to Find Elk in Unit 31

Idaho Fish and Game's material on unit 31 stops at the boundary — there is no agency account of where its elk live. So the ground below is the unit's own and the read on where to start is ours, labelled as such. The unit lies in Washington County. It runs to about 597 square miles.

How Idaho Fish and Game sets up elk hunting in unit 31

Idaho Fish and Game runs its general elk seasons by elk management zone rather than unit by unit, and puts unit 31 in the Brownlee Zone, so the zone's tag rules are the ones that apply here.

The lines of the unit: Brownlee Dam and Snake River

Idaho Fish and Game describes unit 31 as that portion of Washington County within the following boundary: beginning at Brownlee Dam on the Snake River, then southeast on State Highway 71 to U.S. 95, then southwest on U.S. 95 to the Snake River at Weiser, then down the Snake River to the point of beginning. That is a legal description, not a habitat map. What it does give you is the way in: the rivers and highways you cross, and the divides that decide which drainage you end up in.

High ground inside the line: Hitt Mountains, Sturgill Peak and Hitt Peak

Named high points inside the unit include Hitt Mountains at 7,578 feet, Sturgill Peak at 7,572 feet, Hitt Peak at 7,405 feet, Benton Peak at 7,217 feet and Iron Mountain at 6,487 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Elk want timber to bed in and open ground to feed on, within a short walk of each other.

Holding ground: Tamarack Flat, Barton Gulch and Deadhorse Gulch

Below them sit Tamarack Flat at 5,271 feet, Barton Gulch at 5,100 feet, Deadhorse Gulch at 4,762 feet, Pine Grass Flat at 4,671 feet and Mulmick Gulch at 4,517 feet. That is the low country of the unit — the ground animals drop into when they are pushed or when the weather turns. Reaching the edge of one before light beats reaching its middle at noon.

Water: Looney Spring

The water inside the unit line comes to 128 mapped stream reaches, 14 lakes, 99 stock tanks and 5 springs. Named sources include Looney Spring. Nothing in the data says which of them run in autumn, so a scouting trip earns its fuel.

Reading the land status

Our ownership read for this unit is approximate — it comes out as National Forest 60%, Private / Other 32% and State Trust 8%, so treat it as a starting point and check a current land-status layer before you plan a route. Named ground inside unit 31 runs from 2,066 feet to 7,578 feet — more than 4,000 feet between the named features alone, so the season you draw decides which part of it you hunt.

Unit 31 terrain and land status

Measured from the unit boundary, not from the agency write-up

The lay of it

  • 2,145–6,060 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 3,910 ft ; peaks can run higher.
  • 596.5 sq mi inside the boundary.

Who owns the ground

  • National Forest — 60%
  • State Trust — 8%
  • Private / Other — 32%

Roughly 68% is public. Carry a land-status layer anyway — these are area percentages, not a map of where the boundaries fall.

Water on the ground

  • 99 tanks
  • 5 springs
  • 128 stream segments
  • 14 lakes

Counts from mapping data, so this is how many exist, not how many hold water in a dry year. Sitting water only pays where you find fresh tracks.

Named features inside the unit

Glass from: Hitt Mountains (7,578 ft), Hitt Peak (7,405 ft), Iron Mountain (6,487 ft), Corner Mountain (6,284 ft)

Holding ground: Coffee Flat (6,566 ft), Telephone Saddle (5,826 ft), Tamarack Flat (5,271 ft), Looney Spring

Every one of these was tested against the unit polygon before it went on the map. They are starting points, not agency recommendations.

How to Hunt Elk in Unit 31

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Elk Success Rates

Rifle20%
Archery18%

Idaho Fish and Game's 2025 harvest estimates put elk success in unit 31 at 20% — 152 animals taken by 764 hunters. The hunter count is large enough for the percentage to mean something and small enough that a good or bad year still moves it.

These are the agency's own printed figures for this unit, not a modelled estimate and not a state average. They describe one season, so check Idaho Fish and Game's current harvest estimates before you read a trend into them.

Elk Draw Odds

SeasonTagsApplicantsDraw %Pts (n/p)
Controlled — 1st Drawing either sex (resident) 6954813.0% —
Controlled — 1st Drawing either sex (nonresident) 6679.0% —
Controlled — 2nd Drawing either sex (resident) 43141.0% —
Controlled — 2nd Drawing either sex (nonresident) 0480.0% —

Data from 2025 draw results. Each row is one residency pool — read the label before the number. This agency publishes no point thresholds, so the Pts column stays blank and these are pool odds, not what a point total draws.

Open in Draw Odds Engine

Idaho Fish and Game's 2025 first drawing for elk in unit 31, with residents and nonresidents kept apart because they draw from different tag pools:

  • Hunt 2112 — residents 579 applicants for 45 tags, 8% drawn; nonresidents 74 applicants for 5 tags, 7% drawn
  • Hunt 2008 — residents 548 applicants for 69 tags, 13% drawn; nonresidents 67 applicants for 6 tags, 9% drawn
  • Hunt 2009 — residents 381 applicants for 69 tags, 18% drawn; nonresidents 45 applicants for 6 tags, 13% drawn
  • Hunt 2163 — residents 293 applicants for 45 tags, 15% drawn; nonresidents 54 applicants for 5 tags, 9% drawn

There are 3 more hunts on the same ground that year. Idaho draws at random with no point system, so these are what that year happened to look like, not a requirement to build toward. Idaho Fish and Game reuses hunt numbers for different areas between years, so the figures are matched on the area each hunt had in 2025. Checked against Idaho Fish and Game's hunt planner draw results on 2026-06-09.

Unit Logistics & Expectations

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Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Idaho unit 31?
Unit 31 lies in Washington County. Idaho Fish and Game describes unit 31 as that portion of Washington County within the following boundary: beginning at Brownlee Dam on the Snake River, then southeast on State Highway 71 to U.S. 95, then southwest on U.S. 95 to the Snake River at Weiser, then down the Snake River to the point of beginning. It covers about 597 square miles.
What is the elk success rate in unit 31?
Idaho Fish and Game's 2025 harvest estimates put elk success in unit 31 at 20% across all manners of take. Those are the agency's own figures for this unit, not a statewide average.
Where do you stay and resupply for a unit 31 hunt?
The nearest services our logistics pipeline finds for unit 31 are at Midvale, about 12 miles from the unit's centre, with Cambridge at about 16 miles. There are also 7 developed campgrounds in or beside the unit.
What is the mule deer success rate in unit 31?
Idaho Fish and Game's 2025 harvest estimates put deer success in unit 31 at 24% across all manners of take. Those are the agency's own figures for this unit, not a statewide average.

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Sources & Verification

Every fact on this page is tied to a primary source below. Last fact-checked 2026-10-24.

  1. Idaho Big Game 2026 Seasons & Rules — Idaho Department of Fish and Game · supports: Game management unit boundary description, Counties the unit lies in, Controlled hunt numbers, tags and season dates · accessed 2026-10-24
  2. IDFG Brownlee Zone elk tag limits — Idaho Department of Fish and Game · supports: Season structure for the unit · accessed 2026-10-24
  3. IDFG Hunt Planner — 2025 general hunt harvest statistics — Idaho Department of Fish and Game · supports: Harvest, hunters and percent success for elk in unit 31 · accessed 2026-10-19
  4. IDFG Hunt Planner — controlled hunt drawing odds — Idaho Department of Fish and Game · supports: Applicants, tags and percent drawn by hunt, year and residency · accessed 2026-06-09
  5. IDFG GameManagementUnits and ControlledHunts_All feature services — game management units and every species' controlled-hunt areas — Idaho Department of Fish and Game · supports: Mapped extent of the unit or hunt area, Which named ground falls inside its line · accessed 2026-10-24
  6. IDFG general deer season page for unit 31 — Idaho Department of Fish and Game · supports: Season structure for the unit · accessed 2026-10-24