Idaho Mule Deer

Unit D15-1X (Deer Hunt Area 15-1X)

Idaho Hunting Guide — Mule Deer

Hunt Area 15-1X is drawn from unit 15, in Idaho County. Named ground inside it runs from 2,949 to 5,602 feet. Idaho Fish and Game publishes no per-unit mule deer success figure we can verify for this hunt area. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

View Draw Odds Idaho Hunting Guide

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Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Idaho Unit D15-1X 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.

Mule Deer guide

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Mule Deer Hunting in Unit D15-1X

Where to Find Mule Deer in Hunt Area 15-1X

Idaho Fish and Game's material on hunt area 15-1X 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.

What hunt area 15-1X is

Idaho Fish and Game draws deer hunt area 15-1X in Idaho County on a line that runs along State Highway 14, and past Earthquake Creek and Dump Creek, written out corner by corner in its controlled hunt area descriptions. That makes it a piece of ground drawn for this hunt, not a unit, and the outline on this page is IDFG's own polygon for it rather than a unit outline. The units it is drawn from lie in Idaho County.

High ground inside the line: Wall Point, Green Creek Point and Blacktail Butte

Named high points inside the hunt area include Wall Point at 5,602 feet, Green Creek Point at 4,932 feet, Blacktail Butte at 4,625 feet, North Blacktail Butte at 4,623 feet and Sugarloaf at 2,949 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Mule deer on open country use every fold and draw there is, and almost none of the flat.

Holding ground: Earthquake Meadows

Below them sit Earthquake Meadows at 4,765 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.

How high the named ground goes

Named ground inside hunt area 15-1X runs from 2,949 feet to 5,602 feet. Those are the heights of the features GNIS names, which bound the range from inside rather than measure it.

Unit D15-1X terrain and land status

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

Named features inside the unit

Glass from: Wall Point (5,602 ft), Blacktail Butte (4,625 ft), North Blacktail Butte (4,623 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 Mule Deer in Hunt Area 15-1X

Idaho Fish and Game's per-unit harvest statistics describe general seasons on game management units, so there is no mule deer success figure we can tie to hunt area 15-1X alone, and we won't borrow one from a unit. The plan: glass the broken edges at first light, then sit still and keep glassing the same ground.

Glassing from North Blacktail Butte, Sugarloaf and Wall Point

Take a position on one of North Blacktail Butte (4,623 ft), Sugarloaf (2,949 ft), Wall Point (5,602 ft) and Green Creek Point (4,932 ft) and be on it before light. Cold air slides downhill in the dark, so keep your scent out of the bowl you mean to watch; expect the thermals to turn uphill an hour after the sun reaches the slope. 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, late-season hunts put bucks with doe groups and moving in daylight.

A first plan from the pins on this page

The map above marks Wall Point, Blacktail Butte and North Blacktail Butte as places to see from. Each pin is a named feature verified to fall inside the hunt-area line, not a spot anyone has hunted. Join two of them into a morning: be on the first before light, move to the second once the thermals turn.

What a day here costs you

One good position held through the whole of first light beats three visited in a hurry.

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 mule deer 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.

Idaho rules that decide your day

Summarised from IDFG regulations. They change — read the current regulations and your permit-tag before you hunt.

Legal shooting hours

Big game may be taken from half an hour before sunrise to half an hour after sunset.

Motorized retrieval

Idaho has no general off-road retrieval allowance on federal ground; stay on designated routes.

Tagging

Validate the tag by cutting out the month and day, and attach it to the carcass before moving it.

Leaving meat

Wasting edible meat is illegal.

Where you may not shoot

Occupied structures — No shooting from or across a public highway, and no shooting toward an occupied dwelling.

Mule Deer: where to put the shot

Broadside or quartering away, on the back edge of the front leg about a third of the way up the body.

Shots to refuse

Nothing behind or overlapping the animal you picked.
Your maximum range is the farthest you have shot a three-shot group into a paper plate from the rest you are carrying.
Pass the shot you are talking yourself into.

Plan the carry: roughly 40– 120 lb of boned-out meat, before head and hide — two large coolers. ProHunt planning estimate, not an agency figure.

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Mule Deer Success Rates

Idaho Fish and Game's per-unit harvest statistics describe general seasons on game management units, and hunt area 15-1X is a controlled-hunt area, not a unit, so there is no figure here we can tie to it. A unit's general-season number would describe different hunters on different ground. Idaho Fish and Game's hunt planner reports controlled-hunt results hunt by hunt, which is the figure to check before you apply.

Mule Deer Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts (n/p)
Controlled — 1st Drawing either sex (resident)	100	185	54.0%	—
Controlled — 1st Drawing either sex (nonresident)	0	0	0.0%	—
Controlled — 2nd Drawing either sex (resident)	7	53	13.0%	—
Controlled — 2nd Drawing either sex (nonresident)	0	1	0.0%	—

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 hunt area 15-1X, with residents and nonresidents kept apart because they draw from different tag pools:

Hunt 1130 — residents 185 applicants for 100 tags, 54% 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

Planning Notes

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Water

No named spring or water source falls inside the hunt area in our water layer, so plan on carrying water or finding it on a scouting trip.

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Road Conditions

Idaho Fish and Game's boundary for the hunt area follows State Highway 14. That is the edge, not a promise of access inside — check a current motor-vehicle-use map before you drive in.

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Terrain Difficulty

Named features inside the hunt area run from 2,949 to 5,602 ft. Named heights only — the ground between and below them can run lower.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Idaho hunt area 15-1X?

Hunt Area 15-1X is drawn from unit 15, in Idaho County. Idaho Fish and Game draws deer hunt area 15-1X on a line that runs along State Highway 14, and past Earthquake Creek and Dump Creek, written out corner by corner in its controlled hunt area descriptions.

What is the mule deer success rate in hunt area 15-1X?

Idaho Fish and Game's per-unit harvest statistics cover general seasons on game management units, and hunt area 15-1X is a controlled-hunt area, so there is no figure we can tie to it. Idaho Fish and Game's hunt planner reports controlled-hunt results hunt by hunt, and that is the number to check before you apply.

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Sources & 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: Controlled hunt area description for deer hunt area 15-1X, The game management units the area is drawn from · accessed 2026-10-24
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