Draw odds / Montana

How the Montana draw works

The draw is how Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks hands out its limited elk, deer, pronghorn, moose, bighorn sheep, mountain goat and bison tags: you apply by the deadline, and the system below decides who is drawn. Everything here — the rules, the dates and the odds for every hunt — comes from the agency's own published material.

Rules from Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks’s published materials — verified against the cited sources on 2026-08-04.

Montana hunting units — public land, access and harvest for every unit →

The system

Elk, Deer, Pronghorn — All applicants

Bonus squared: every applicant stays in the lottery holding points² + 1 entries — more points, better odds, nobody at zero.

Limited-entry permits only (special districts); pronghorn licenses are drawn the same way. Resident general deer/elk licenses are OTC (no deadline, purchase anywhere). The nonresident big game combination license (B-10, capped at 17,000 by MCA 87-2-505) is a separate drawing on the PREFERENCE point system — 75% by point rank / 25% to zero-point applicants (MCA 87-2-115(5)-(6)), max three $100 points — NOT bonus-squared; its pool is not in these artifacts.

Moose, Bighorn sheep, Mountain goat, Bison — All applicants

Bonus squared: every applicant stays in the lottery holding points² + 1 entries — more points, better odds, nobody at zero.

Once-in-a-lifetime (or near) species, same squared-bonus math (2026 MSGB regs p. 11 cites 87-2-117 identically). Nonresident 10% computed on the REGIONAL quota and distributed to districts with 10+ tags first (ARM 12.3.620(3)).

Points: bonus. One bonus point per species per license year, retained on an unsuccessful first-choice application; points square in the draw and reset to zero on drawing the first-choice permit/license (ARM 12.3.603(5)-(6)); a second/third-choice award does NOT reset them (FWP Bonus Points FAQ). A point may be purchased without applying, July 1 – Sep 30 ($15 res / $25 NR, $75 NR for moose/sheep/goat/bison — MCA 87-2-117(2),(5)). CRITICAL MECHANIC: accumulated points only count in a drawing if the applicant also purchases a point with that application (87-2-117(3)), and bonus points apply to first-choice drawings only (87-2-117(4)).

Parties: allowed — averaged points round to the nearest whole point (.5 rounds up). Parties of up to 5. "The department shall calculate the average number of bonus points accumulated by the individuals listed on the party application, rounded to the nearest whole number, and square the average" (MCA 87-2-117(7)(b)). Party of 2–5 (2026 DEA regs p. 14), one application, all-or-nothing (ARM 12.3.602(1)). The separate nonresident-combination PREFERENCE system averages to the third decimal instead (87-2-115(7)) — different program, not this pool. Moose/sheep/goat/bison party availability is not stated in any primary source — left unencoded.

Nonresidents are "limited to, but not guaranteed, 10 percent of the license and/or permit quota for a district" (MCA 87-2-506(2), cited in the 2026 regs) — and the cap binds ONLY when resident demand exceeds the quota; undersubscribed districts can exceed it. The 10% includes nonresident landowners. Moose/sheep/goat compute the 10% regionally (ARM 12.3.620).