The grant will help support and expand the Access Yes! program.
Thanks in part to a $1.65 million federal grant recently awarded to Idaho Fish and Game, hunters and anglers can look forward to more public access on private land through the Access Yes! program.
The grant will help support and expand Access Yes! — a program which improves hunting and fishing by compensating willing landowners who provide access to private land or allow access through it.
As of August 2026, about 328,000 acres of private property are enrolled in Access Yes! With the new funding, Fish and Game plans to offer more competitive lease rates to current participants and increase the number of acres over the next three years.
The department received the $1.65 million grant through the 2026 Voluntary Public Access and Habitat Incentive Program (VPA-HIP), funded by the Working Families Tax Cuts Act, and administered by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). The VPA-HIP competitive grant program provides funding to help state and tribal governments encourage landowners to allow public access to their land for hunting, fishing, and other wildlife-dependent recreation.
“This grant funding goes directly toward strengthening and securing access agreements with landowners, which increases the amount of private land containing quality wildlife habitat that are open to public access in Idaho,” said Katie Oelrich, Access Program Coordinator.
A portion of the grant will also support a wildlife viewing project in the Teton Valley, providing improved habitat and viewing opportunities for sandhill cranes and waterfowl.
“Hunters and Idaho Fish and Game are dealing with less private land to hunt on these days, driven by economic pressures, other hunting access markets, and changing land use. The good news is that with solid state and federal incentive programs working together, we can keep hunting access growing, support landowners and rural communities, and help conserve habitat,” Oelrich said.
Access Yes! is one of a handful of partnerships and programs designed to improve access for hunters and anglers in Idaho, alongside State Endowment Access and the Large Tracts Program. More information is available on the Hunting and Fishing Access webpage.