Montana's legislature meets for only 90 days every two years, but the amount of work that goes into a single abbreviated session is mind-blowing. In just a few short months during its 2023 session, more than 200 bills dealing with fish and wildlife management, public access, conservation funding and fair chase hunting and fishing opportunities will have been introduced and considered in Helena. On this week's Podcast & Blast, we sit down with Jake Schwaller and John Sullivan of the Montana ...

When Drew Hanes thinks about the worst disputes over blocked public access she’s encountered in her career, she recalls the time when her friends found themselves arguing with an angry Montana landowner instead of hunting antelope. "In Montana we have a history of leasing BLM land to large ranches [for grazing]," says Hanes, the executive director for the Public Land Water Access Association. "My friends were hunting on this BLM land and the owner of the leases came out and said 'I own this, ...

In support of our state’s elk, mule deer, trout and a myriad of other species that rely on public lands habitat for survival, the Colorado chapter of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers (BHA) is increasing its reward from $500 to $1,000 for reports or information leading to a conviction of those responsible for building illegal trails on public lands. Although BHA has offered $500 rewards for information leading to the conviction of illegal OHV/ATV use, e-bike use and dumping for many years (see ...

The progress of HB 3086, the river basin model for ODFW Commission structure, was unfortunately stalled early last week. The -4 amendment had enough votes to pass out of the House Agriculture, Land Use, Natural Resources, and Water Committee, but it was instead referred without amendments or recommendations to the House Rules Committee. It appears that some groups, in the eleventh hour, expressed their concerns to the committee members, as well as the House Speaker’s office and the ...

Do Arrow Rifles have a place in Archery Season?  Legislation in Oklahoma that would allow an ArrowRifle to be used during Archery Season isgetting a lot of attention. Naturally, the groups affiliated with Archery Hunting are the mostoutspoken in opposition of this legislation. HB2355 and SB352 were both introduced in thissession in Oklahoma with different but similar enough language to get attention. This strategyof launching multiple bills of similar language in a given session has become ...