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Units / Montana / District 403

Unit research · Montana District 403

District 403 — Montana

12% public across 422,959 ac. Road access is easy — only 18% of the public land is more than a mile from a road. Watch the checkerboard: 3,351 ac of public land has no public route in.

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District 403Full map — ownership, roads, wind →
3,270–4,350 ft

elevation range

12%

public land

18%

of public >1 mi from a road

3,351 ac

landlocked public

1.16

road miles per mi²

1 mi

maintained trails

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

Tags & season

Draw hunts on this ground.

3 limited-entry deer hunts are drawn on District 403: apply in the Montana draw, by the agency's deadline below.

Deer tag · 3 draw hunts (2026)$5.00 resident · $5.00 nonresident
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)

Montana deer draw calendar

  • Sep 30, 2026point window closes

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

UNK 8%BLM 4%UNKL 0%□ Private 88%
Unit area422,959 ac
Public land50,666 ac (12%)
Landlocked public3,351 ac (6.6%)
Deer draw pressure1.6 tags/mi² public (0.18 of total area)
Motorized routes (MVUM + roads)767 mi
Maintained trails1 mi

Backcountry

Public land >1 mi from a road9,143 ac (18% of public)
Road density1.16 mi/mi²
Managed byUNK 35k ac · BLM 15k ac · UNKL 1k ac
Elevation3,270–4,350 ft
Median elevation3,720 ft
Median slope

Where the ground sits

3,270 ft4,350 ft

Tap or hover the bars for each elevation band

Slope mix

Which way the slopes face

N 24%
E 29%
S 25%
W 22%

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

Burn history, migration coverage, and terrain for this district — The full report assembles it into one printable document and keeps it current as the facts change.

Open the report →

Harvest — agency survey estimates

Elk · 2025

10 harvested

no district-level hunter estimate published

10 bulls (bulls only) · 0 calves

Elk harvest · 2004–2025 · 0 → 10

Deer · 2025 · success = harvest ÷ hunters

53.8% success

225 taken by 418 hunters · 2,149 days afield

159 bucks · 66 does · 0 fawns

NR 83% · Res 52% success

Deer hunter success · 2004–2025 · 72% → 54%

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 4069% public · 21% remoteDistrict 4019% public · 10% remoteDistrict 40012% public · 12% remoteDistrict 44140% public · 59% remoteDistrict 41598% public · 81% remoteDistrict 4048% public · 8% remote

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What happens nextSep 30Deer point window closes · details →
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