Using GoHunt to find a cow elk hunt for 2023

[Erussell01]

The Montana system is no where near as complicated as people want to make it out to be in my opinion. The only thing you need to understand is that we have different regs for every unit. Here are your options:

General Elk Tag: Look in the regs and in almost every unit you will see a line for the General Elk License (if you don't see this line for a unit it is because there is NO general season for that unit, everything is permit only). In some units the General is good for any elk in either Archery or Rifle season, and in some units its only good for cows, or spikes, or sometimes only good in archery. So there are restrictions per unit, but the General tag is good for almost every unit in the state.

Elk B tags: Again, almost every unit has one or more B tags that are good for archery, or rifle, or both (Region 1 units don't have any B tags, but almost every other region does). Read the regs for the units you are interested in to see how many B tags are available and what seasons they are good for and if there are any restrictions on them (i.e. some can only be used on State lands in a given unit.

004 and 005 B tags are available as leftover tags pretty much every single year. Those tags are good for the entirety of Region 4 and 5 respectively. If you just want to get out and look around for elk I would recommend one of those.

Man that was one of the most helpful responses I've ever gotten on a forum. Thank you for taking your time to help me understand. As a newish western hunter, I got burned on tags in wyoming my first year and luckily was able to scrounge up a couple antelope and make the most of the hunt.


From my understanding, i can apply for a general tag (won't likely get it with 1 point) and a B tag which I might get even if I don't get the general tag... correct?

Are you from Montana?

 

[bsnedeker]

Man that was one of the most helpful responses I've ever gotten on a forum. Thank you for taking your time to help me understand. As a newish western hunter, I got burned on tags in wyoming my first year and luckily was able to scrounge up a couple antelope and make the most of the hunt.


From my understanding, i can apply for a general tag (won't likely get it with 1 point) and a B tag which I might get even if I don't get the general tag... correct?

Are you from Montana?

That's mostly correct. With 1 point you are almost guaranteed to NOT draw a general tag next year...you have a better chance with 0 points because MT allocates 25% of general tags to people with 0 points, and the other 75% go to the highest point holders...so 3 points is 100% chance, 2 points has a really high percentage...pretty sure no one with 1 point drew last year. Deadline to apply for the general elk tag is April 1st.

If you apply for the right B tag you can hunt cow elk in MT every year. Some of them are hard to draw, but if you look for B tags in the areas of the state that are over objective for elk (regions 4, 5, and 3 are where I focus) you will find some easy to draw B tags. As I said previously, the 004 and 005 B tags have leftover tags every year so I usually pick one of those up during the leftover draw. The deadline to apply for B tags is June 1st. The leftover tags go up for sale in July I believe...might be august.

I live up in NW MT but do most of my elk hunting in Central Montana so I have 3 elk tags in my pocket every year.

 

[Erussell01]

That's mostly correct. With 1 point you are almost guaranteed to NOT draw a general tag next year...you have a better chance with 0 points because MT allocates 25% of general tags to people with 0 points, and the other 75% go to the highest point holders...so 3 points is 100% chance, 2 points has a really high percentage...pretty sure no one with 1 point drew last year. Deadline to apply for the general elk tag is April 1st.

If you apply for the right B tag you can hunt cow elk in MT every year. Some of them are hard to draw, but if you look for B tags in the areas of the state that are over objective for elk (regions 4, 5, and 3 are where I focus) you will find some easy to draw B tags. As I said previously, the 004 and 005 B tags have leftover tags every year so I usually pick one of those up during the leftover draw. The deadline to apply for B tags is June 1st. The leftover tags go up for sale in July I believe...might be august.

I live up in NW MT but do most of my elk hunting in Central Montana so I have 3 elk tags in my pocket every year.

Thank you. That is super helpful! I will do my research on those regions