OpenHunt for Android is on Google Play — take your plan into the field. Send it to your phone →

Units / Montana / District 343

Same number, different ground: Moose district 343

Unit research · Montana District 343

District 343 — Montana

53% public across 157,326 ac. Road access is easy — only 9% of the public land is more than a mile from a road. Almost none of the public land is landlocked.

Open in map
Watch this unit — freeReturned and leftover tags, new legal closures, fire near the unit, weather warnings — by email. One unit free, no card.
Pins: free, no account
District 343Full map — ownership, roads, wind →
3,930–8,080 ft

elevation range

53%

public land

9%

of public >1 mi from a road

1,037 ac

landlocked public

1.71

road miles per mi²

38 mi

maintained trails

Computed from primary government data by the open pipeline. See the code →

Tags & season

Tags: check Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks.

No draw hunts are published for this district. Tag type, quotas and season dates are in Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks's regulations.

Plus: Conservation license$8.00 resident · $10.00 nonresident

Season dates: see Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks's regulations

2026 Deer/Elk/Antelope regulations (FWP PDF)

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

USFS 39%BLM 11%UNK 2%■ Other public 1%□ Private 47%
Unit area157,326 ac
Public land82,981 ac (53%)
Landlocked public1,037 ac (1.2%)
Walk-in access19,713 ac
Motorized routes (MVUM + roads)419 mi
Maintained trails38 mi

Backcountry

Public land >1 mi from a road7,393 ac (9% of public)
Road density1.71 mi/mi²
Managed byUSFS 61k ac · BLM 17k ac · UNK 4k ac
Elevation3,930–8,080 ft
Median elevation5,430 ft
Median slope14°

Where the ground sits

3,930 ft8,080 ft

Tap or hover the bars for each elevation band

Slope mix

Which way the slopes face

N 27%
E 33%
S 27%
W 13%

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

2,421 ac of this district has burned — 2% of the unit. The full report assembles it into one printable document and keeps it current as the facts change.

Open the report →

Season conditions — measured, not vibes

Historical temperatures · 2000–2025

Monthly normal highs and lows, °F33° high16° lowJFMAMJJASOND

Normals for 2000–2025 — tap or hover for a month

Measured at HELENA REGIONAL AIRPORT, 31 km from the unit’s center and ~1,600 ft below its median elevation — expect the unit to run colder. NOAA ISD-Lite hourly observations.

Harvest — agency survey estimates

Elk · 2025

165 harvested

no district-level hunter estimate published

66 bulls · 95 cows · 4 calves

Elk harvest · 2004–2025 · 105 → 165

Deer · 2025 · success = harvest ÷ hunters

21.7% success

241 taken by 1,112 hunters · 7,733 days afield

212 bucks · 29 does · 0 fawns

NR 33% · Res 21% success

Deer hunter success · 2004–2025 · 43% → 22%

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

public_land_pct = public_area / unit_area
landlocked = public ∖ reachable(roads, corners)
remote = public ∖ buffer(roads, 1 mi)

Computed, not curated: no paid research team, no opinions dressed as data. If a number looks wrong, file an issue — the fix ships for everyone.

Nearby districts

District 29356% public · 17% remoteDistrict 33929% public · 34% remoteDistrict 38814% public · 0% remoteDistrict 33556% public · 4% remoteDistrict 28175% public · 28% remoteDistrict 21551% public · 11% remote

Ready to scout it?

Everything on this page, live on the map — ownership, boundaries, roads, and your own waypoints.

Take District 343 into the field

Download Montana’s pack and this unit works with no signal — boundaries, ownership, roads, elevation. Record your hunt with the screen off. Check what’s visible from any ridge.

Scan to install OpenHunt for Android. Open this page on the phone afterwards and it lands in the app.

QR code for openhuntmaps.com/appGet it on Google Play
Open District 343 in the map
Watch this unit — freeReturned and leftover tags, new legal closures, fire near the unit, weather warnings — by email. One unit free, no card.