Visiting farmers and landowners used to be a fun way to make new friends and gain hunting or fishing access. We would bring gifts, copies of our license and personal info, and offer our services and help. In the off season we would help with a harvest, repair the buildings, paint, pick up trash, repair fences, or whatever the landowner needed.
Times have changed. Many gates are locked or have security features. Landowners of big areas may not even live in the country, county, or state. When the older owners die, inheritors develop or sell the property that you once had access to. Subsistence hunting is gone. It costs less to buy meat from the store. Cheap, filling the freezer, is no longer a reality.
Without landowner ONYX style apps, you have no idea who owns what and where the boundaries are. Paper maps are a thing of the past. Thousands of acres in Galatin County, and Montana, are owned by non-American countries.
Vast Hutterite Colony lands were once accessible. They were often laced with public State School Trust lands. Many types of game were now available. These areas have become leased by outfitters and are no longer available to the public.
Federal lands are abundant but many border private areas with no, or limited access. These lands quickly become unavailable when it snows. Big Game migrates to lower watersheds that have no public access. In Ennis, herds of elk stack up on private, closed lands.
Galatin County, in Montana, has the honor of being the drunkest county in America and is also the hardest place to get permission to hunt. Without a personal or family connection, your access potential is zero. Landowner responses are, “we don’t allow hunting”, “Hunting is just for our family and friends”, “Our land is a sanctuary for wildlife”. The few areas that have accessible School trust lands are crowded. If you have access, you are golden for now.
If you have decent access, enjoy it as long as you can. When the older generation of landowner’s pass, the next generation will block your access. You too will then need to access the already overcrowded public lands.
Montana should be called Big Bucks Country. To enjoy the best hunting, you need to pay Big Time. Fishing guides charge $60- $80 an hour for a float. Antlers on private land cost $1,000 a tine or more. Even sheds have increased in cost up to $25 or more a pound.
You would think that a huge state like Montana would have plenty of hunting access. Some areas in the eastern, less populated areas do. Hunting on reservations is restricted. Areas around the Parks, prime lakes, watersheds, and Rocky Mountain resources are private. Over half of our State School Trust lands have no public access. Corner crossing is banned in Montana.
Hunters are watched closely. Trail cams and other optics can see every move from a distance. Any mistake can be recorded. Sadly, some questionable “Hunters” ruin the sport for the honest ones. Poachers, trespassers, and trophy hunters leave a sour taste in landowners’ mouths. Damage to property, trash, gut piles, and land abuses have become too common. Filling their tags is more important than how they do it.
Confined and crowded herds cause disease to spread from close contact. CWD, EHD, Brucellosis, and other diseases make animals sick and perhaps inedible. More wolves, bears, lions, and traffic limit these confined herds. Wild Game Sanctuaries are just like Elephant Graveyards where critters migrate to die. Without healthy Game Management, wild herds are destined to downfall.
Hunting will disappear when the critters become infected with diseases that impact humans. Look at what happened to the Bison herds when they are blamed for the spread of Brucellosis, which affects the rich man’s cattle herds. The truth is that most transmitted Brucellosis comes for elk.
Big Sky Country has often been labeled as the “Playground for the Rich”. This has become truer today than ever. Politicians will not open lands since they are the” Rich”.
Knock, Knock, Who’s there?
Montana Grant
