Frequently Asked Questions

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Each application is entered into the drawing one time regardless of group size.

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The deer do not need supplemental feed to survive.  Typically when deer are fed they concentrate in the area of feeding denuding the vegetation close by and passing disease through contact at the feeders.  Also, deer when being fed tend to keep the youngest from the feeders and frequently cause them to starve or become injured.  Supplemental feeding no matter the time of year is not something we recommend.  Is it legal?  So long as you aren't hunting off them yes.  Is it a good thing to do?  No.

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Hello, The Riverstone Pond is owned by the City of Coeur d'Alene.  Unfortunately, they do not allow public fishing.  We have approached the City to let them know we are willing to stock the pond in exchange for it being opened up to fishing, but they have had concerns about doing this.  We'll continue to work with the City in the future to see if something can be arranged, but for now it is not open to fishing. Thanks for the question. Andy Dux Regional Fishery Manager

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Thanks for the questions.  Question 1) will I ever get the report?  We will make an interim and final report available online on our website when they are completed.  It takes a long time to organize the hair, send to UI lab for analysis, anlyze the data, and write a final report.  However, we are sincerely thankful for all the assistance people have provided in sending the hair to us.  We have had much greater response than anticipated which will increase our abilities to understand historical conditions of moose. Question 2.  Is this a study to show that wolves are not the cause of moose disappearance in central Idaho?  The idea of science and research is to look at causes based on data and the scientific method, not what we think is going on based on a hunch.  We have lots of ideas of what is going on with moose but we have little research to prove anything.  This hair research will not prove anything but will give us a needed piece of the puzzle and provide us a glimpse into what micronutrient condition the moose were in when they were increasing in numbers compared to condition they were in when declining.  Catttle producers have known forever that certain micronutrients are critical in pregnancy and calf survival and health, and the ability of animals to put on weigh, avoid diseases and succumbing to parasites, and thrive.  That is why they supplement with mineral blocks.  We have little research on what micronutrient levels are necessary for health, pregancy, and calf survival in our wild ungulate populations.  We assume they are getting what they need in the wild.  However, their bodies do crave salt and minerals and when they are available, they use them.  We have areas of Idaho where moose are declining and there are no wolves.  We have moose and elk increasing where there are wolves.   And we have moose and elk decreasing where there are wolves.  If I were to put it in human terms, if you are weak from disease or sick from an infection, you would be much easier for someone to knock off your feet and beat up right?  Same with predators taking down prey.  If a moose is weak from malnutrition, has a few parasites or diseases, it cannot defend itself as well from a wolf or predator and will become easier prey when if it was healthy it would have survived.  All that said, we believe wolves can and do have impacts in some areas on some ungulate populations.  Thanks to 100s of radio collars on elk this year we discovered that twice as many elk are killed by cougars as are killed by wolves, and as many are dying of malnutrition as are being killed by wolves.  The wolf question is important but claiming every decline is caused by wolves would be denying all the fluctuations in ungulate populations we had prior to having wolves or where we don't have wolves, and missing on the root causes of many declines.  We want to look at the entire picture including wolves but not just the impacts wolves have.  Also, we are interested in looking at the history of minerals in vegetation and soils that resulted from the Mt. Saint Helens eruption in 1980.  We are curious to see if the influx of minerals in the ash plume may have benefited ungulate populations during the 1980s and 1990s.  We might be able to see differences in these minerals over time and within the plume areas.  We are trying to keep an open mind and put more information together.  We are assuming and history shows that there are a multiple of causes that regulate and limit populations.  I hope that answers your questions.

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You cannot purchase a resident limited deer controlled hunt tag and a resident general season deer tag in the same season. However, if you draw the limited deer controlled hunt tag in unit 18 and purchase the resident deer controlled hunt tag, the only other general season deer tag you may purchase would the Res-Nonres general season deer tag, at the nonresident price provided the quota has not been sold out. The Res-Nonres general season deer tag could be the regular deer tag or the white-tail deer tag.

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The drawing was done several weeks ago. Look up your results at the link below. Thanks Spring Turkey Drawing Results

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Thank you for your question. If you are part of a group application and the application is selected during the draw process but there are fewer tags remaining in the hunt you entered, the draw system will not award any tags to the group application and move on to the next application with an individual or group size equal to or less than the number of tags remaining in the hunt. You may contact us at 208-334-3700 if you have additional questions about the controlled hunt draw process.

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Both species of bass in most of the waters you list grow slowly. A 5 lb bass could certainly be 15 years old; however, no matter where you are talking about bass from the same year class show a range of growth rates with some growing slow, others near average, and others growing more quickly. This may be influenced by water temps, sex, feeding habits, and age at maturity. We recently estimated the ages of bass at Lake Lowell. Many bass in the 14-16 range ranged from 6-12 yrs of age.  Bass at other waters grow at a similar rate, but probably not quite as slow as Lake Lowell.   There are several reason why people encourage others not to keep bass. One is people think it is a highly-prized sportfish and they have some interest in seeing high release rates, so they have the opportunity to catch trophy individuals. A second reason is that bass have consumption advisories throughout Idaho due to mercurcy bioaccumulation. All anglers should ensure that they are following these advisories which encourage only a certain numbers of meals per time period and to selectively harvest smaller fish. Lastly, you discuss science/biology, this is a very water specific question. We estimate harvest rates through tagging studies. We see a range of harvest rates from these studies. Most of the larger water bodies (Brownlee and CJ) have moderate harvest rates (20-35%) which have shown to be sustainable and capable of providing some trophy class fish too.  Smaller ponds and reservoirs may be over-harvested if they receive intense pressure, but not all receive intense pressure.  If you have additional questions, please call the Southwest Regional Office in Nampa.    

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Thank you for your question. Trapping licenses were required in the 1980's. Unfortunately we do not have license purchase history for the 1980's.

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These results are now available online in full: 2015 Moose harvest statistics 2015 Sheep harvest statistics 2015 Mountain goat harvest statistics

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Thanks for the question but it was a typo in the Big Game Seasons and Rules brochure; Unit 55 does not have any bears in it. Sorry for the confusion.