Unit A28-1 (Pronghorn Hunt Area 28-1)

What Idaho Fish and Game publishes for hunt area 28-1 is a boundary, not a pronghorn map. Every place named below sits inside the hunt-area line. Which of them holds animals in your season is for you to find out.

What hunt area 28-1 is

Idaho Fish and Game describes pronghorn hunt area 28-1 as all of Units 28, 36B, 37, and 37A. That is whole units, so the outline on this page follows unit lines all the way round. The units it is drawn from lie in Lemhi and Custer counties. Idaho Fish and Game also uses the code 28-1 for deer and Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep hunts, and in its own words "hunt areas are different for each species" — those are other pieces of ground, and this page is the pronghorn area.

High ground inside the line: Borah Peak, Lost River Range and Leatherman Peak

Named high points inside the hunt area include Borah Peak at 12,631 feet, Lost River Range at 12,619 feet, Leatherman Peak at 12,197 feet, Grouse Creek Mountain at 11,065 feet and Flatiron Mountain at 11,011 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Pronghorn stay on the open rolling ground and leave the timber alone.

Holding ground: Wino Basin, Juliette Basin and Hoodoo Meadows

Below them sit Wino Basin at 8,346 feet, Juliette Basin at 8,301 feet, Hoodoo Meadows at 8,227 feet, Camas Meadows at 8,089 feet and Cayuse Canyon at 7,943 feet. That is the low country of the hunt area — the ground animals drop into when they are pushed or when the weather turns. Work out which of them you can see from one position before you pick a camp.

Water: Magpie Spring, Sheephorn Spring and Dishrag Spring

Named sources include Magpie Spring, Sheephorn Spring, Dishrag Spring, Crib Spring, Sagebrush Spring and Gooseberry Spring. Nothing in the data says which of them run in autumn, so a scouting trip earns its fuel.

How high the named ground goes

Named ground inside hunt area 28-1 runs from 3,277 feet to 12,631 feet — more than 4,000 feet between the named features alone, so the season you draw decides which part of it you hunt.

Idaho Fish and Game's per-unit harvest statistics describe general seasons on game management units, so there is no pronghorn success figure we can tie to hunt area 28-1 alone, and we won't borrow one from a unit. The plan: spot from a vehicle or a rise at distance, then plan a stalk that uses the only cover there is — the curve of the ground.

Glassing from Twin Peaks, Bald Mountain and Taylor Mountain

Take a position on one of Twin Peaks (10,328 ft), Bald Mountain (10,304 ft), Taylor Mountain (9,947 ft) and Red Point (9,910 ft) and be on it before light. Work the morning with the air falling away from you, then accept that by mid-morning the wind has reversed and the plan has to change with it. Work the glass in strips and go back over ground you already covered — animals appear in country you looked at ten minutes ago. On the rut hunts, early-season bucks hold does and can be decoyed where the law allows it.

A first plan from the pins on this page

The map above marks Leatherman Peak, Grouse Creek Mountain and Flatiron Mountain as places to see from, and Leatherman Pass, Povert Flat, Devils Basin and Magpie Spring as ground to watch. Each pin is a named feature verified to fall inside the hunt-area line, not a spot anyone has hunted. Take the pair you can reach on one road and treat the rest as a second trip.

What a day here costs you

With 9,354 feet between the lowest and highest ground, the walk back up out of a kill site is the part to plan first. Decide the night before where you will be at first light, and go there in the dark.

What we can't tell you

Some of the ground named above carries no land-status flag we trust, so check ownership on a current layer before you hunt it. We have no pronghorn success figure for this hunt area that survives checking against Idaho Fish and Game's own harvest and hunter counts, and we would rather say so than print a statewide average as though it were measured here.