2023-2024 Montana Deer and Elk Hunting New Season Dates

Montana’s Elk and Deer hunting seasons for 2023 and 2024 are nearing, so prepare for the best hunting of your life. Montana is a popular hunting destination due to its abundant wildlife (including large herds of deer and elk) and breathtaking landscapes. Whether you’re a seasoned hunter or have never picked up a gun before, this hunting season is a great time to go outdoors and connect with nature. Prepare yourself and your equipment for an exciting season of elk and deer hunting in Montana. In this article you shall find all the information including season dates, licenses and regulations to make your hunt more planned.

Montana Deer Hunting Season

2023

Archery Deer Season (2023)

Rifle Deer Season (2023)

2024

Archery Deer Season (2024)

Rifle Deer Season (2024)

Montana Elk Hunting Season

2023

Archery Elk Season (2023)

Rifle Elk Season (2023)

2024

Archery Elk Season(2024)

Rifle Elk Season (2024)

Deer Hunting Regulations

• Hunting game animals from an airplane or using one to find and disturb them is illegal. If collected while flying on the same hunting day, it is prohibited to provide game animal locations to another hunter. These rules promote fair and ethical hunting and safeguard Montana wildlife.

• Hunting game animals or birds using artificial lights that illuminate the target is illegal. This includes rifle scopes with built-in lighting or infrared light viewable only with specialist optics. Hunters must follow this rule for fair and ethical hunting.

• Bait hunting may damage animals by acclimating them to humans. Bait is forbidden to preserve animal behavior and habitat.

• Hunters must appropriately dispose of game animal corpses, stomach piles, and offal to prevent disease transmission and wildlife attraction. The remains may be buried, removed, or bagged and disposed of at an approved landfill. Hunters must obey these rules to safeguard animals and the environment.

• Whether they have game or not, hunters must stop at check stations on their way to and from hunting zones.

• Except for snaring on private property that endangers cattle from March 1 to October 1, it is forbidden to damage, disrupt, or remove someone else’s trap or snare or its wildlife. On-duty police are exempt.

• Dogs may rescue injured game if the handler controls them with a 50-foot lead.

• Hunters must keep the corpse’ sex (or antlers/horns if harvest is restricted by size) until processing. Licenses that enable either sex of the animal are exempt.

• Rifles, handguns, shotguns with 0, 00, or slugs, muzzleloaders, archery equipment, and crossbows are legal for game hunting. No other approach is allowed. Game-hunting rifles have no caliber or magazine/round capacity limits. Illuminated reticles, rangefinders, and “red dot” scopes are legal.

• Interfering with or disturbing a licensed wild animal taker is unlawful.

All firearm hunters and their companions must wear at least 400 square inches of hunter orange (fluorescent) material above the waist, visible at all times. Archery hunters pursuing deer, elk, and antelope during archery-only season or in archery-only hunting districts are exempt from this requirement, but they must wear hunter orange during the general (firearm) season for other animals like moose, bighorn sheep, mountain goat, black bear, and mountain lion.

• An person or member of their hunting group must promptly report an illegal take to an FWP game warden or 1-800-TIP-MONT. Field dress the animal before transporting.

• Unless there is a tribal-state agreement, hunting game animals with a state license is prohibited on Montana’s Indian Reservations. No agreements exist.

• When requested, FWP enforcement officials must check game animals, birds, fish, and furbearers.

• Montana recognizes IWVC hunting, fishing, and trapping suspensions. A suspended hunter, fisher, or trapper cannot get a license in another member state.

• Hunters must return to the kill site of any game animal, game bird, wolf, or furbearer killed or captured at the request of a Department Game Warden.

• Even if the area is not listed, hunters must get permission from the owners, lessee, or agent to hunt or capture wildlife on private property. Private landowners must provide authorization to access public property and retrieve wildlife.

• Hunting without a license or permit, refusing to show a game warden a license, altering a license, lending or transferring a license, using another person’s license, attaching a license to an animal killed by another person, or having physical control of a license issued to another person are all illegal.

• Before leaving the kill site, a hunter must cut the correct month and day off the license and affix it to the animal.

• A Montana resident or nonresident hunting license or camping permit holder who litters campsites, public or private lands, streams, or lakes while hunting, fishing, or camping will lose their license for a year.

• Shooting game animals with radio collars, neck bands, ear tags, or other markers is lawful, but markers and radio collars must be returned to FWP and the slaughter of a tagged animal must be reported to the local office.

• Electronic devices that monitor game animals and provide information to hunters are unlawful. A hunter’s radio-tracking collar on a dog is legal.

• Unlawfully killed, caught, or taken game fish, birds, game animals, and fur-bearing animals cannot be owned, shipped, or transported. Hides, heads, mounts, naturally shed antlers, and the bones of an elk, antelope, moose, or deer that died naturally are exempt from this restriction. Except for federal law, grizzly bear hides, heads, and mounts cannot be sold.

• Vehicle-killed elk, deer, antelope, and moose carcasses and parts may be taken with a Vehicle-Killed Wildlife Salvage Permit. Mountain sheep horns and skulls that have died naturally may be collected and owned, but they must be reported to the department and inspected within 48 hours and 10 days, with a $25 pin fee. State parks prohibit mountain sheep horns and skulls.

• Montana allows unlicensed predatory and nongame hunting year-round. Hunting on State School Trust property requires a Conservation License or recreational use license, while hunting on private land requires authorization. Badger, raccoon, red fox, hares, rabbits, ground squirrels, marmots, tree squirrels, porcupines, and prairie dogs are nongame species. Hunting game animals on public highway shoulders, berms, barrow pits, or rights-of-way is banned.

• Only predators, wolves, and non-protected birds may be hunted using recorded or amplified animal noises.

• Grizzly bear skins, heads, and mounts may not be sold, bought, or traded. They sell or buy naturally shed antlers or antlers with a skull or part of a skull from game animals that died naturally. No meat sales.

• Any state legislation, ARM, or F&W Commission rule limiting the shooting of simulated animals makes it illegal to fire a weapon or hunting tool at a decoy.

• Hunting using recorded or amplified animal noises is unlawful, and only state- and federal-legal game animals may be transported. Transferring an illegally obtained game animal over state lines violates the Lacey Act, and USFWS forms must be filled out when transporting wildlife internationally. Finally, without permission, you cannot dismantle, disrupt, or remove another person’s traps or snares or remove creatures from them.

• Two-way electronic communication is illegal when hunting game animals/wolves, mountain lions/bobcats with dogs, avoiding game check stations/FWP enforcement officials, or facilitating unlawful hunting activities. Safety/legitimate exemptions exist.

• UAVs/drones cannot be used to focus, pursue, drive, rally, or agitate game animals or find them for hunting on the same day. UAVs/drones cannot film hunts either.

• Hunters and anyone with game animals or components must not discard or spoil “suitable for food” portions. Four quarters above the hock, loin, and backstrap (excluding mountain lions).

Violations & Penalty

Under Montana law, a person convicted of unlawfully killing, taking, or possessing game animals is required to reimburse the state for trophy animals. For restitution purposes, trophy animals are defined as Bighorn Sheep ($30,000), Elk ($8,000), Antlered Deer ($8,000), Moose ($6,000), Mountain Goat ($6,000), Antelope ($2,000), and Grizzly Bear ($8,000). Trophy animals must meet certain criteria, such as at least four points on one antler and a main beam length on each side of at least 20 inches for White-tailed Deer, and Boone & Crockett (B&C) measuring procedures or standards must be used for criteria measurement. The official measurements for the purpose of this regulation are those that are taken at the time of confiscation or seizure of the trophy, and any B&C measurements will be considered final when taken by an official B&C scorer.

Deer Hunting License Fees

For complete Montana hunting season license fees you may read on the FWP website.

FAQs related to Montana Deer season

Dates & Regulations source: Montana FWP

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John Lewis

John Lewis, the passionate founder of HuntingSeasons.org, is committed to promoting responsible hunting and a profound love for the wilderness. With years of expertise, his platform serves as a reliable guide for hunting enthusiasts, advocating ethical practices and nature preservation.

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