We’re only a couple of months into 2023, but for me the new year officially starts March 1st because that’s when we have to re-up our hunting and fishing licenses, and it doesn’t hurt to pick up a fresh copy of one of these.
There is a lot of info in the new regulations, so I decided to go to the source to see if there are any big changes we need to know about and I spoke with Greg Lemon at the Communication and Education Division over at Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks.
Lemon had some good news for all of you who don’t like change.
“This is what we call an off-cycle year," said Lemon. "So every other year we do season settings where we review all the regulations with the public, so the public can weigh in on all our regulations, and then we go through a pretty lengthy process of getting feedback from the public on what we’d like to see changed and working with our staff on developing changes, and bringing those changes to back to the public and ultimately to the commission. So this is one of those years where you wouldn’t expect to see very many changes.”
Well, that’s good. But you can’t just dust off your 2022 regulations and call it good this year. Because Greg told me there is one small change to pay attention to.
“There is a bit of a change in our regulations that hunters will notice on our license there will be a quota range, and in the past there has just been a number for those licenses," Lemon told MTN. "And that range is what is approved by the commission. So the commission approves the range, but the biologist, based on their date come back and will actually set a number for the year based on that range. So now hunters will see that quota range, and that quota range will just represent that range that the department can set the final number for issuing licenses.”
Outside of that – Greg told me that if anyone has any questions to give the hotline a call at 406-444-2950 and someone should be able to walk you through the license process.
And also – don’t forget the MYFWP mobil app as another resource in keeping your tags organized.
