Units / Montana / District 261
Same number, different ground: Moose district 261 → · Sheep district 261 →
Unit research · Montana · District 261
District 261 — Montana
57% public hunting land across 137,419 ac. Road access is easy — only 24% of the public land is more than a mile from a road. Almost none of the public land is landlocked.
Computed from primary government data by the AGPL pipeline. See the code →
Tags & season
Draw hunts on this ground.
3 limited-entry deer and elk hunts are drawn on District 261: apply in the Montana draw, by the agency's deadline below.
Season dates: see Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks's regulations
Fees and draw dates from Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, 2026, verified 2026-08-05 — past its verify-by date, confirm with the agency. Tag type from the agency's published draw statistics: a district that appears in none of them has no limited-entry hunt we know of. Source: FWP license fees for 2026 (fee schedule PDF) · 2026 Deer/Elk/Antelope regulations (FWP PDF) · 2026 Moose/Sheep/Goat/Bison regulations (FWP PDF) · FWP application & drawing dates · MCA 87-2-505 (B-10 combination, $1,312 eff. 2026-03-01).
Land & access
Backcountry
Where the ground sits
Tap or hover the bars for each elevation band
Slope mix
Which way the slopes face
Share of ground steeper than 5° — flat ground has no facing
North slopes hold shade, cover and snow; south slopes open first.
USGS 3DEP 1 arc-second (30 m), slope at native resolution in a local metric projection, sampled on a 200 m grid. See the code →
Unit intelligence report · Pro, $5 a month or $49 a year
25,102 ac of this district has burned — 18% of the unit. The full report assembles it into one printable document and keeps it current as the facts change.
Season conditions — measured, not vibes
Historical temperatures · 2000–2025
Normals for 2000–2025 — tap or hover for a month
Measured at MISSOULA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, 70 km from the unit’s center and ~2,600 ft below its median elevation — expect the unit to run colder. NOAA ISD-Lite hourly observations.
Harvest — agency survey estimates
Elk · 2025
57 harvested
no unit-level hunter count published
36 bulls · 21 cows · 0 calves
Elk harvest · 2004–2025 · 188 → 57
Deer · 2025 · success = harvest ÷ hunters
37.7% success
183 taken by 486 hunters · 2,952 days afield
149 bucks · 34 does · 0 fawns
NR 80% · Res 37% success
Deer hunter success · 2004–2025 · 40% → 38%
FWP survey estimates per hunting district, split resident and nonresident. These are estimates from FWP's hunter survey rather than registration counts — its own column legend reads "Estimate of…" — and that holds even for the limited-permit species, so they are not the same quantity as a state that counts checked animals. Bighorn sheep, moose and mountain goat are numbered in their own district systems, separate from the deer and elk districts and using the same numbers for different ground, so each is shown on its own geography. FWP publishes per-district hunter and effort estimates for deer, sheep, moose and goat; elk and antelope pages show harvest and composition without a district-level success rate, because inventing one from statewide effort would be wrong at this grain. Success rates are derived as harvest ÷ hunters from FWP's own published columns wherever both are given. Source: FWP Harvest Estimates search (myfwp.mt.gov) · FWP Harvest Estimates CSV export (sheep, moose and goat).
How these numbers are made
Computed, not curated: no paid research team, no opinions dressed as data. If a number looks wrong, tell us at support@openhuntmaps.com — the fix ships for everyone.
Ready to scout it?
Everything on this page, live on the map — ownership, boundaries, roads, and your own waypoints.
Take District 261 into the field
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