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Idaho Mule Deer Elk

Unit 45 (Smoky - Bennett Zone)

Idaho Hunting Guide — Mule Deer, Elk

Unit 45 lies in Camas, Elmore and Gooding counties and covers about 1,270 square miles. Named ground inside it runs from 2,474 to 7,435 feet. Idaho Fish and Game's harvest estimates put deer success here as high as 29%. Federal land covers about 63% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

🏔️
63%
Public Land
⛰️
3,051–6,064 ft
Sampled elevation

Build your own PDF hunt guide for Unit 45

Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Idaho Unit 45 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.

Mule Deer Hunting in Unit 45

Unit 45 lies in Camas, Elmore and Gooding counties and covers about 1,270 square miles. Named ground inside it runs from 2,474 to 7,435 feet. Idaho Fish and Game's harvest estimates put deer success here as high as 29%. Federal land covers about 63% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

Where to Find Mule Deer in Unit 45

Idaho Fish and Game's material on unit 45 stops at the boundary — there is no agency account of where its mule deer live. The country below is verified; where to begin in it is our judgement, not the agency's. The unit lies in Camas, Elmore and Gooding counties. It runs to about 1,270 square miles.

How Idaho Fish and Game sets up mule deer hunting in unit 45

Idaho Fish and Game's unit layer marks unit 45 "No Regular Deer Tag Opportunity", so deer here are hunted on controlled hunts rather than a general tag.

The lines of the unit: Snake River and King Hill

Idaho Fish and Game draws unit 45 in Camas, Elmore and Gooding counties on a line that runs along Interstate 84, U.S. 20, State Highway 46 and U.S. 26, and past Snake River and King Hill, written out corner by corner in its unit boundary descriptions. Read it as a frame, not as a hint about animals. Its value is practical — those are the features you will navigate by, and the ridges that separate one day's country from another's.

High ground inside the line: Mount Bennett Hills, Bennett Mountain and Davis Mountain

Named high points inside the unit include Mount Bennett Hills at 7,435 feet, Bennett Mountain at 7,435 feet, Davis Mountain at 6,798 feet, The Knob at 6,566 feet and Twin Peaks at 6,487 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Mule deer bed on broken ground with a view and feed on the brush below it.

Holding ground: Connet Flat, Dempsey Meadows and Dead Horse Flat

Below them sit Connet Flat at 5,469 feet, Dempsey Meadows at 5,461 feet, Dead Horse Flat at 5,461 feet, Burns Gulch at 5,410 feet and Fir Grove at 5,317 feet. These are the folds worth watching, and the ones other hunters walk past on the way to somewhere steeper. Two you can watch from a single knob is worth more than five you have to drive between.

Water: Big Mike Spring, Broken Tank Spring and Cow Heaven Spring

The water inside the unit line comes to 66 mapped stream reaches, 18 lakes, 24 stock tanks and 1 springs. Named sources include Big Mike Spring, Broken Tank Spring, Cow Heaven Spring, Gridley Spring, Hash Spring and Big 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 17%, BLM 15% 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 45 runs from 2,474 feet to 7,435 feet — more than 4,000 feet between the named features alone, so the season you draw decides which part of it you hunt.

Unit 45 terrain and land status

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

The lay of it

  • 3,051–6,064 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 4,381 ft ; peaks can run higher.
  • 1,269.7 sq mi inside the boundary. Big enough that picking one drainage beats driving three.

Who owns the ground

  • National Forest — 60%
  • BLM — 15%
  • State Trust — 8%
  • Private / Other — 17%

Roughly 83% is public. Carry a land-status layer anyway — these are area percentages, not a map of where the boundaries fall.

Water on the ground

  • 24 tanks
  • 1 springs
  • 66 stream segments
  • 18 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: Davis Mountain (6,798 ft), Twin Peaks (6,487 ft), Fir Grove Mountain (6,227 ft), Packer Butte (5,989 ft)

Holding ground: Connet Flat (5,469 ft), Dempsey Meadows (5,461 ft), Burns Gulch (5,410 ft), Big Mike Spring, Broken Tank 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 Mule Deer in Unit 45

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Mule Deer Success Rates

Idaho Fish and Game's 2025 harvest estimates put deer success in unit 45 at 29% — 9 animals taken by 31 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. The figure is IDFG's result for deer in the unit, not for mule deer alone.

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.

Mule Deer Draw Odds

SeasonTagsApplicantsDraw %Pts (n/p)
Controlled — 1st Drawing either sex (resident) 682,0823.0% —
Controlled — 1st Drawing either sex (nonresident) 76841.0% —
Controlled — 2nd Drawing either sex (resident) 04110.0% —
Controlled — 2nd Drawing either sex (nonresident) 1911.0% —

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 mule deer in unit 45, with residents and nonresidents kept apart because they draw from different tag pools:

  • Hunt 1035 — residents 2,082 applicants for 68 tags, 3% drawn; nonresidents 684 applicants for 7 tags, 1% drawn
  • Hunt 1089 — residents 138 applicants for 36 tags, 26% drawn; nonresidents 77 applicants for 4 tags, 5% drawn
  • Hunt 1077 — residents 50 applicants for 9 tags, 18% drawn; nonresidents 59 applicants for 1 tag, 2% drawn

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 45?
Unit 45 lies in Camas, Elmore and Gooding counties. Idaho Fish and Game draws unit 45 on a line that runs along Interstate 84, U.S. 20, State Highway 46 and U.S. 26, and past Snake River and King Hill, written out corner by corner in its unit boundary descriptions. It covers about 1,270 square miles.
What is the mule deer success rate in unit 45?
Idaho Fish and Game's 2025 harvest estimates put deer success in unit 45 at 29% 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 45 hunt?
The nearest services our logistics pipeline finds for unit 45 are at Glenns Ferry, about 14 miles from the unit's centre, with Bliss at about 17 miles. There are also 1 developed campgrounds in or beside the unit.
What is the elk success rate in unit 45?
Idaho Fish and Game's 2025 harvest estimates put elk success in unit 45 at 11% 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 Hunt Planner — 2025 general hunt harvest statistics — Idaho Department of Fish and Game · supports: Harvest, hunters and percent success for deer in unit 45 · accessed 2026-10-19
  3. 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
  4. 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
  5. IDFG Smoky - Bennett Zone elk tag limits — Idaho Department of Fish and Game · supports: Season structure for the unit · accessed 2026-10-24