OntarioHunter
Well-known member
- Joined
- Sep 11, 2020
- Messages
- 5,987
Another case of making things simpler just confuses people ... who look for ways to be confused. One license does it all now. For those who have never hunted or fished in Montana before, the conservation license has ALWAYS been separate from fishing or hunting license. Different pieces of paper. Formerly, to access state land for other purposes (i.e. swimming, shooting gophers, etc.) technicaly required a use permit. Those who purchased hunting and fishing licenses were exempt because permission to use was covered under conservation license. What the state has now done is simply do away with the old use permit and require nonhunter/fisherfolk to buy a conservation license.
I never knew a permit was required for non hunting/fishing activities. But I'm seldom back in Montana these days except to hunt and fish. I suspect the former use permit was probably always loosely enforced on low use state lands (e.g. gopher hunting). I suspect it will continue to be loosely enforced for those areas/purposes. But the state can't make up different use regs for different pieces of land. Too complicated.
I'm all in favor of making nonhunting/fishing users pay their fair share of accessing and building facilities like fishing access boat launches, trailheads, etc. especially sites that are heavily used by them.
This reg has done little to change existing situation except to make being legal less complicated for everyone. Quite the opposite of typical govt progress these days.
I never knew a permit was required for non hunting/fishing activities. But I'm seldom back in Montana these days except to hunt and fish. I suspect the former use permit was probably always loosely enforced on low use state lands (e.g. gopher hunting). I suspect it will continue to be loosely enforced for those areas/purposes. But the state can't make up different use regs for different pieces of land. Too complicated.
I'm all in favor of making nonhunting/fishing users pay their fair share of accessing and building facilities like fishing access boat launches, trailheads, etc. especially sites that are heavily used by them.
This reg has done little to change existing situation except to make being legal less complicated for everyone. Quite the opposite of typical govt progress these days.