Unit E55-1 (Elk Hunt Area 55-1)

Idaho Hunting Guide — Elk

Hunt Area 55-1 is drawn from units 55, 56 and 57, in Cassia, Oneida and Power counties. Named ground inside it runs from 4,297 to 10,316 feet. Idaho Fish and Game publishes no per-unit elk 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

Build your own PDF hunt guide for Unit E55-1

Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Idaho Unit E55-1 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.

Elk guide

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.

Elk Hunting in Unit E55-1

Where to Find Elk in Hunt Area 55-1

Idaho Fish and Game draws an exact line around hunt area 55-1 and says nothing about where the elk stand inside it. So the ground below is the unit's own and the read on where to start is ours, labelled as such.

What hunt area 55-1 is

Idaho Fish and Game describes elk hunt area 55-1 as all of Units 55, 56 and 57. 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 Cassia, Oneida and Power counties. Idaho Fish and Game also uses the code 55-1 for deer and pronghorn hunts, and in its own words "hunt areas are different for each species" — those are other pieces of ground, and this page is the elk area.

High ground inside the line: Independence Mountain, Cache Peak and Mount Independence

Named high points inside the hunt area include Independence Mountain at 10,316 feet, Cache Peak at 10,313 feet, Mount Independence at 9,936 feet, Black Pine Mountains at 9,357 feet and Black Pine Peak at 9,339 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Elk want timber to bed in and open ground to feed on, within a short walk of each other.

Holding ground: Pine Canyon, Long Canyon and Last Chance Gulch

Below them sit Pine Canyon at 6,475 feet, Long Canyon at 6,409 feet, Last Chance Gulch at 6,381 feet, Big Canyon at 6,325 feet and Flat Canyon at 6,323 feet. Those are the basins, parks and bottoms this hunt area has, and they are what you glass into from above. Pick the one with the least road on its upwind side.

Water: East Kurtz Spring, Lupe Springs and Howell Creek Spring

Named sources include East Kurtz Spring, Lupe Springs, Howell Creek Spring, Parke Spring, Wild Horse Spring and Yellow Jacket 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 55-1 runs from 4,297 feet to 10,316 feet — more than 4,000 feet between the named features alone, so the season you draw decides which part of it you hunt.

Unit E55-1 terrain and land status

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

Named features inside the unit

Glass from: Independence Mountain (10,316 ft), Black Pine Mountains (9,357 ft), Mount Harrison (9,253 ft), Albion Mountains (8,597 ft)

Holding ground: Stines Pass (8,311 ft), Connor Flat (7,848 ft), Basin-Elba Pass (7,090 ft), East Kurtz Spring, Lupe Springs

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 Elk in Hunt Area 55-1

Idaho Fish and Game's per-unit harvest statistics describe general seasons on game management units, so there is no elk success figure we can tie to hunt area 55-1 alone, and we won't borrow one from a unit. The plan: find the feed, find the timber it backs onto, then watch the seam between them at the edges of the day.

The 2026 controlled hunts

Idaho Fish and Game's 2026 rules list one controlled hunt for elk in hunt area 55-1.

Hunt 2036 — antlered elk, 50 tags, Oct 1–Oct 31. Motorized Hunting Rule Applies in Unit 56

Dates and tag numbers are IDFG's as printed for that season, and IDFG changes hunt areas between years, so check the current booklet before you apply.

Applying for hunt area 55-1

Idaho Fish and Game's first application period for deer, elk and pronghorn runs May 1 to June 5, with results in early July, and a second period runs August 5 to 15 for what is left. A hunter drawn for a limited antlered-only elk hunt sits out the next year's first period for that kind of hunt; unlimited and extra hunts are exempt. Two to four hunters may apply together for the same hunt. Idaho's draw is random, with no preference or bonus points to build.

Glassing from Albion Mountains, Middle Mountain and Connor Ridge

Take a position on one of Albion Mountains (8,597 ft), Middle Mountain (8,447 ft), Connor Ridge (8,326 ft) and Jim Sage Mountains (8,029 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. A tripod is worth more here than another hour of walking. On the rut hunts, September bugling works where you can get above a drainage and let the thermals carry sound downhill.

A first plan from the pins on this page

The map above marks Independence Mountain, Black Pine Mountains, Mount Harrison and Albion Mountains as places to see from, and Stines Pass, Connor Flat, Basin-Elba Pass and East Kurtz 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 6,019 feet between the lowest and highest ground, the walk back up out of a kill site is the part to plan first. Leave the truck earlier than you want to and you will hunt the best half-hour of the day.

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 elk 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.

Elk: 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. That is lungs, and on a quartering-away angle it picks up the far shoulder.

Shots to refuse

No straight-on and no straight-away shots. An elk's chest is deep and the margin is small.
Nothing standing behind or overlapping the animal you picked. A pass-through kills the elk behind it too.
Your maximum range is the farthest you have put three shots in a paper plate off the sticks you are actually carrying. Not the farthest you have ever hit anything.
Scope on 3–4x. A herd fills a 12x field of view and you lose the animal you picked.

Identification:On an antlerless tag, legal means no antler of any kind through the skin. A spike looks exactly like a cow until it turns its head. If you can't see the head, don't shoot.

Plan the carry: roughly 150– 220 lb of boned-out meat, before head and hide — two to four large coolers, plus bagged ice from town. ProHunt planning estimate, not an agency figure.

Pro Members Only

Unlock elk tactics for Unit 55-1

Upgrade to Pro — $49/yr

Elk Success Rates

Idaho Fish and Game's per-unit harvest statistics describe general seasons on game management units, and hunt area 55-1 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.

Elk Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts (n/p)
Controlled — 1st Drawing either sex (resident)	45	1,113	4.0%	—
Controlled — 1st Drawing either sex (nonresident)	5	248	2.0%	—
Controlled — 2nd Drawing either sex (resident)	1	190	1.0%	—
Controlled — 2nd Drawing either sex (nonresident)	0	58	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 elk in hunt area 55-1, with residents and nonresidents kept apart because they draw from different tag pools:

Hunt 2036 — residents 1,113 applicants for 45 tags, 4% drawn; nonresidents 248 applicants for 5 tags, 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

Planning Notes

💧

Water

39 named water sources inside the hunt area in our water layer, including East Kurtz Spring, Lupe Springs and Howell Creek Spring. Which of them run in autumn is something only a scouting trip will tell you.

🥾

Terrain Difficulty

Named features inside the hunt area run from 4,297 to 10,316 ft. More than 4,000 feet between them alone, so plan the pack-out before the shot.

📋

Permit Notes

Idaho Fish and Game controlled hunt 2036 (2026 rules). The first application period runs May 1 to June 5 and the second August 5 to 15. Idaho's draw is random, with no preference or bonus points.

Pro Members Only

Unlock logistics for Unit 55-1

Upgrade to Pro — $49/yr

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Idaho hunt area 55-1?

Hunt Area 55-1 is drawn from units 55, 56 and 57, in Cassia, Oneida and Power counties. Idaho Fish and Game describes elk hunt area 55-1 as all of Units 55, 56 and 57.

What is the elk success rate in hunt area 55-1?

Idaho Fish and Game's per-unit harvest statistics cover general seasons on game management units, and hunt area 55-1 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.

Free Hunt Planning Tools

🎰 Idaho Draw Odds Unit-level tag success rates 📅 Application Timeline Deadlines for all 9 states 🦌 Rut Forecast Peak rut timing by species 💰 Hunt Cost Calculator Budget your entire 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/yr

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 elk hunt area 55-1, The game management units the area is drawn from, Controlled hunt numbers, tags and season dates · 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