Idaho
Idaho draw odds
Every controlled hunt drawing Idaho Fish and Game has published, 1998 to 2026: how many hunters named each hunt first, how many of them drew it, and how the two application periods and two residency pools differ. Twenty-nine seasons — the longest run on this site.
Idaho is the simplest draw this site covers, and the honest version of that is worth saying plainly: there is no point system. The department does not run one, for any species, and its own answer is "No. IDFG does not use any point system in our draw process." Applying for eleven years earns exactly what applying for the first time earns. So the published odds are the whole answer here rather than one input to it — which is why these pages carry no points-to-draw figure, and why any tool showing you one for Idaho has made it up.
By species
What having no points saves you, and what it takes away
The saving is real. There is no ladder to climb, which means nothing to protect, nothing to lose by drawing, and no reason to spend a season applying for a hunt you do not want in order to bank something. In Wyoming, drawing an easy tag can cost you a decade of accumulated position; in Idaho that trade does not exist. Apply for what you want, every year, and a good year is a good year.
The cost is that patience buys nothing. Eleven years of applying is eleven independent chances, not a rising one. If a hunt draws at two per cent it draws at two per cent for you this year and next year — and the only thing you control is which hunt you point at.
The one fact that changes how you rank your choices
Every application gets a random number and tags issue from the lowest to the highest. Simple so far, and then comes the part that decides how you fill in the form:
All first choices will be evaluated first, and tags will be issued if there is still quota available for that hunt choice. After all first choices are evaluated, the draw returns to the lowest random number application and evaluates second choices.Idaho Department of Fish and Game
Every first choice in the state is exhausted before any second choice is looked at. Not interleaved, not weighted — finished. So a second choice is never competing on equal terms; it is competing for whatever survived the entire first-choice round, and on a popular hunt nothing does. That is why the headline figure on every Idaho page here is the first-choice rate: a blended rate across both choices would flatter the hunt and mislead you about where to put your first pick.
There is then a second application period for tags left over, and it is not a formality —5,646 second drawings are published against 21,846 total hunt-season drawings. Roughly a quarter of the record is a second-period competition. We never average the two together; they are separate events.
Applying as a group almost certainly hurts you
This one runs against instinct, so it is worth the space.
When a group application is reached in the draw process, the group will only be awarded if there are tags available for all group members. … Group applications do not receive multiple entries into the draw, since the group is treated as one application.Idaho Department of Fish and Game
One tag left, and the next application in line is a group of four? The group is skipped. Those four hunters just watched a tag they were first in line for go to somebody behind them. Two hunters may apply together for turkey, bear, moose, bighorn sheep or mountain goat; up to four for deer, elk or pronghorn. Every additional name makes the all-or-nothing condition harder to satisfy without buying a single extra chance.
A few other rules that catch people: applicants for moose, mountain goat or bighorn sheep may apply for only one of those three species, and must submit the full tag fee with the application. Mailed applications have not been accepted since 2019. And since 2020, resident hunters who apply for a controlled hunt must wait five days after tags become available before buying a capped elk zone tag.
Hunt choice is the only lever, so here is what it is worth
First-choice draw rates, first application period, 2026:
| Species | Hunts | Average | Range |
|---|---|---|---|
| California sheep | 2 | 1.2% | 1.0–1.3% |
| Rocky Mountain sheep | 28 | 3.1% | 0.3–7.7% |
| Mountain goat | 19 | 3.7% | 1.9–5.9% |
| Moose | 94 | 9.2% | 0.5–40.0% |
| Black bear | 6 | 13.3% | 4.4–24.0% |
| Pronghorn | 54 | 31.2% | 1.1–100% |
| Deer | 147 | 35.0% | 0.8–100% |
| Elk | 182 | 38.5% | 0.4–100% |
What these tables do not cover
One exclusion matters more than all the caveats put together.Nonresident general season deer and elk tags are not in this data.Beginning with the 2026 season those moved to their own application and draw process, separate from controlled hunts, with its own windows and its own published odds that we have not parsed. If you are a nonresident looking for a general season deer or elk tag, this page is not your answer and the tables below are not either. Everything here iscontrolled hunts.
Two things about Idaho's data that change how to read it
Every hunt is drawn twice. Idaho runs a first and a second application period, and publishes them separately. The first is where almost everyone applies; the second is a genuine second drawing for what is left. They are different competitions and nothing here averages them together.
The residency permit columns changed meaning around the 2019 season, and the department did not rename them. Before, they count permits across both application choices; from 2019, first choice only. The applicant columns are first-choice-only throughout. Divide one by the other without noticing and one 1998 deer hunt reports a 250% draw rate — which is what IDFG's own percentage field papers over by printing 100. Every hunt page here reads which meaning its own totals support, row by row, and leaves the rate blank rather than publishing an impossible one.
Where these numbers come from
464 responses from Idaho Fish and Game's own controlled-hunt odds service, one per species per season per application period, giving 43,692 residency rows across 21,846 hunt-season drawings. Every page links the exact request each of its figures came from.
Each response was checked against the arithmetic it publishes about itself before anything was stored — every hunt's first- and second-choice permits must sum to the total it issued, and its resident and nonresident applicants must sum to its first-choice total. Where Idaho's own figures disagree with each other, both are shown and the disagreement is named rather than resolved.