On the agenda for the upcoming 2016 Hunting Season: Fellow archery hunters need to be made aware that Sonja Anderson (Elk biologist for Region 4 - HD 410) has proposed to allow rifle hunting for elk on Private, State, and BLM lands (BMA if they allow it) from August 15th THROUGH ARCHERY SEASON all the way until February 15th. Some of the verbal comments coming from the Region 4 headquarters staff in Great Falls: ‘We are not required to even have an archery season, we just want to kill the elk.’ This mentality should really upset you as a hunter and more specifically, you as an archery hunter. If you are able, attend the meeting at the Lewistown Area Resource Office tomorrow (Thursday January 7th) at 7 PM to voice your opinion regarding the aspect of safety during the archery season. There is more on the agenda as well, but none of it as important as this topic. If you can or cannot attend, you can contact the MT FWP Region 4 Headquarters at (406) 454-5840 and contact the Lewistown Area Resource Office (LARO) at (406) 538-4658, located at 215 W. Aztec Drive. A well written comment would be probably be a good idea, as well.
HD 410: Establish Shoulder Season During the 1/1-2/15 shoulder season Either-sex 410-20 permits valid for ANTLERLESS ELK ONLY and not valid on CMR. Increase quota range of 410-00 B License from 200-800 to 200-1000 410-00 B-licenses also valid 01/01-2/15 but not on the CMR
It appears my original post applies to the SHOULDER SEASONs being proposed in 2016.
On another note HD 680, its about 95% public land BLM,, in order to archery hunt elk in HD 680 you have to draw a 690 tag,,(Bears Paw Tag) thousand's of applicants and 35 archery tags, so your chances of hunting this huge district is slim to none, Lots of un-hunted elk there, and get this they are going to have a shoulder season in HD 680 100 antlerless tags and have a Cow B licenses available, 300 of them, But hell no we don't want an archery season there, 238 contiguous sections of BLM ground, a great idea would be to have your 620 archery elk tag also valid in HD 680 they join each other at cow creek.
I got a little type "happy". The comment, "We are not required to even have an archery season, we just want to kill the elk" . . . . burns my ass.