Unit 4A (Panhandle Zone)
Idaho Hunting Guide — Moose
Unit 4A lies in Bonner and Kootenai counties and covers about 292 square miles. Named ground inside it runs from 2,065 to 6,384 feet. Idaho Fish and Game's harvest estimates put Shiras moose success here as high as 100%. Federal land covers about 50% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.
Build your own PDF hunt guide for Unit 4A
Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Idaho Unit 4A 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.
Moose Hunting in Unit 4A
Unit 4A lies in Bonner and Kootenai counties and covers about 292 square miles. Named ground inside it runs from 2,065 to 6,384 feet. Idaho Fish and Game's harvest estimates put Shiras moose success here as high as 100%. Federal land covers about 50% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.
Where to Find Shiras Moose in Unit 4A
What Idaho Fish and Game publishes for unit 4A is a boundary, not a Shiras moose map. 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 Bonner and Kootenai counties. It runs to about 292 square miles.
How Idaho Fish and Game sets up Shiras moose hunting in unit 4A
Idaho Fish and Game hunts Shiras moose here only by controlled hunt, and describes its moose hunt area 4A as all of Unit 4A.
The lines of the unit: Pend Oreille Lake, Alene River and Bernard Peak
Idaho Fish and Game draws unit 4A in Bonner and Kootenai counties on a line that runs along Pend Oreille Lake, Alene River, Bernard Peak and Clark Fork River, written out corner by corner in its unit boundary descriptions. Read it as a frame, not as a hint about animals. Those features are what you will check against the map all week, and the divides among them are the ones that matter.
High ground inside the line: Packsaddle Mountain, Minerva Ridge and Derr Point
Named high points inside the unit include Packsaddle Mountain at 6,384 feet, Minerva Ridge at 5,210 feet, Derr Point at 5,202 feet, Green Monarch Ridge at 5,195 feet and Schafer Peak at 5,176 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Moose want willow, water and shade, and they rarely leave the drainage that has all three.
Holding ground: Dry Gulch, Toms Gulch and Chloride Gulch
Below them sit Dry Gulch at 2,802 feet, Toms Gulch at 2,796 feet, Chloride Gulch at 2,757 feet, Tepee Gulch at 2,739 feet and Deer Gulch at 2,594 feet. These are the folds worth watching, and the ones other hunters walk past on the way to somewhere steeper. Reaching the edge of one before light beats reaching its middle at noon.
Water in this unit
The water inside the unit line comes to 20 mapped stream reaches, 7 lakes and 10 stock tanks. 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 4A runs from 2,065 feet to 6,384 feet — more than 4,000 feet between the named features alone, so the season you draw decides which part of it you hunt.
Unit 4A terrain and land status
Measured from the unit boundary, not from the agency write-up
The lay of it
- 2,054–4,939 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 3,303 ft ; peaks can run higher.
- 291.6 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
- 10 tanks
- 20 stream segments
- 7 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: Packsaddle Mountain (6,384 ft), Minerva Ridge (5,210 ft), Derr Point (5,202 ft), Green Monarch Ridge (5,195 ft)
Holding ground: Johnson Saddle (4,938 ft), Weber Saddle (4,596 ft), Buckskin Saddle (4,471 ft)
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 Shiras Moose in Unit 4A
Moose Success Rates
Idaho Fish and Game's 2025 harvest estimates put Shiras moose success in unit 4A at 100% — 5 animals taken by 5 hunters. On a sample that small the percentage moves several points with one animal, so read the hunter count beside 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.
Moose Draw Odds
| Season | Tags | Applicants | Draw % | Pts (n/p) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Controlled — 1st Drawing either sex (resident) | 4 | 29 | 14.0% | — |
| Controlled — 1st Drawing either sex (nonresident) | 1 | 9 | 11.0% | — |
Data from 2026 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 EngineIdaho Fish and Game's 2026 first drawing for Shiras moose in unit 4A, with residents and nonresidents kept apart because they draw from different tag pools:
- Hunt 3019 — residents 29 applicants for 4 tags, 14% drawn; nonresidents 9 applicants for 1 tag, 11% 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 2026. Checked against Idaho Fish and Game's hunt planner draw results on 2026-06-09.
Unit Logistics & Expectations
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Idaho unit 4A?
What is the Shiras moose success rate in unit 4A?
Where do you stay and resupply for a unit 4A hunt?
Plan Your Hunt with ProHunt Pro
Unlock advanced tactics, the Tag-to-Trail Planner, AI hunt strategy assistant, and personalized camp and trip execution plans.
Upgrade to Pro — $49/yrSources & Verification
Every fact on this page is tied to a primary source below. Last fact-checked 2026-10-24.
- 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
- Moose, Bighorn Sheep & Mountain Goat 2025 & 2026 Seasons & Rules — Idaho Department of Fish and Game · supports: Controlled hunt application periods and eligibility rules · accessed 2026-10-24
- IDFG Hunt Planner — 2025 general hunt harvest statistics — Idaho Department of Fish and Game · supports: Harvest, hunters and percent success for Shiras moose in unit 4A · accessed 2026-10-19
- 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
- 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