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Idaho Mule Deer Moose

Unit 78 (Bear River Zone)

Idaho Hunting Guide — Mule Deer, Moose

Unit 78 lies in Bear Lake and Franklin counties and covers about 244 square miles. Named ground inside it runs from 5,963 to 9,535 feet. Idaho Fish and Game's harvest estimates put deer success here as high as 50%. Federal land covers about 71% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

🏔️
71%
Public Land
⛰️
6,051–8,808 ft
Sampled elevation

Build your own PDF hunt guide for Unit 78

Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Idaho Unit 78 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 78

Unit 78 lies in Bear Lake and Franklin counties and covers about 244 square miles. Named ground inside it runs from 5,963 to 9,535 feet. Idaho Fish and Game's harvest estimates put deer success here as high as 50%. Federal land covers about 71% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

Where to Find Mule Deer in Unit 78

What Idaho Fish and Game publishes for unit 78 is a boundary, not a mule deer map. Every place named below sits inside the unit line. Which of them holds animals in your season is for you to find out. The unit lies in Bear Lake and Franklin counties. It runs to about 244 square miles.

How Idaho Fish and Game sets up mule deer hunting in unit 78

Idaho Fish and Game keeps a general deer season page for unit 78, and that page is where this year's dates and weapon rules live.

The lines of the unit: Emigration Canyon-Strawberry Canyon, Danish Pass and Franklin Basin

Idaho Fish and Game draws unit 78 in Bear Lake and Franklin counties on a line that runs along U.S. 89 and Forest Service Road 415, and past Emigration Canyon-Strawberry Canyon, Danish Pass and Franklin Basin, written out corner by corner in its unit boundary descriptions. It tells you the shape of the unit and nothing about its inhabitants. 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: Paris Peak, Midnight Mountain and Bloomington Peak

Named high points inside the unit include Paris Peak at 9,535 feet, Midnight Mountain at 9,322 feet, Bloomington Peak at 9,305 feet and Hogsback Ridge at 7,657 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: Telegraph Flat, Pat Hollow and Corral Hollow

Below them sit Telegraph Flat at 8,060 feet, Pat Hollow at 8,045 feet, Corral Hollow at 8,025 feet, Horsehoe Basin at 7,973 feet and Green Basin at 7,951 feet. That is the low country of the unit — the ground animals drop into when they are pushed or when the weather turns. Pick the one with the least road on its upwind side.

Water: Green Pass Spring, Mahogany Basin Spring and Nieber Spring

The water inside the unit line comes to 73 mapped stream reaches, 2 lakes, 19 stock tanks and 3 springs. Named sources include Green Pass Spring, Mahogany Basin Spring, Nieber Spring, Balsam Spring, Paris Spring and Worm Creek 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 78 runs from 5,963 feet to 9,535 feet. Those are the heights of the features GNIS names, which bound the range from inside rather than measure it.

Unit 78 terrain and land status

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

The lay of it

  • 6,051–8,808 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 7,378 ft ; peaks can run higher.
  • 244.3 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

  • 19 tanks
  • 3 springs
  • 73 stream segments
  • 2 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: Paris Peak (9,535 ft), Midnight Mountain (9,322 ft), Bloomington Peak (9,305 ft), Hogsback Ridge (7,657 ft)

Holding ground: Red Sinks (8,566 ft), Egan Basin (8,430 ft), Gibson Basin (8,286 ft), Green Pass Spring, Mahogany Basin 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 78

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Mule Deer Success Rates

Idaho Fish and Game's 2025 harvest estimates put deer success in unit 78 at 50% — 21 animals taken by 42 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) 15874021.0% —
Controlled — 1st Drawing either sex (nonresident) 172068.0% —
Controlled — 2nd Drawing either sex (resident) 42961.0% —
Controlled — 2nd Drawing either sex (nonresident) 2753.0% —

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 78, with residents and nonresidents kept apart because they draw from different tag pools:

  • Hunt 1060 — residents 740 applicants for 158 tags, 21% drawn; nonresidents 206 applicants for 17 tags, 8% drawn
  • Hunt 1099 — residents 21 applicants for 21 tags, 100% drawn; nonresidents 14 applicants for 5 tags, 36% 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 78?
Unit 78 lies in Bear Lake and Franklin counties. Idaho Fish and Game draws unit 78 on a line that runs along U.S. 89 and Forest Service Road 415, and past Emigration Canyon-Strawberry Canyon, Danish Pass and Franklin Basin, written out corner by corner in its unit boundary descriptions. It covers about 244 square miles.
What is the mule deer success rate in unit 78?
Idaho Fish and Game's 2025 harvest estimates put deer success in unit 78 at 50% 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 78 hunt?
The nearest services our logistics pipeline finds for unit 78 are at Montpelier, about 15 miles from the unit's centre, with Garden City at about 16 miles. There are also 12 developed campgrounds in or beside the unit.
What is the Shiras moose success rate in unit 78?
Idaho Fish and Game's 2025 harvest estimates put Shiras moose success in unit 78 at 80% 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 general deer season page for unit 78 — 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 deer in unit 78 · 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. 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