Units / Montana / District 502
Same number, different ground: Sheep district 502 →
Unit research · Montana District 502
District 502 — Montana
11% public across 469,549 ac. Road access is easy — only 5% of the public land is more than a mile from a road. Watch the checkerboard: 7,182 ac of public land has no public route in.
Computed from primary government data by the open pipeline. See the code →
Tags & season
Draw hunts on this ground.
2 limited-entry deer and elk hunts are drawn on District 502: apply in the Montana draw, by the agency's deadline below.
Season dates: see Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks's regulations
Montana deer and elk draw calendar
- Sep 30, 2026 — point window closes
- Sep 30, 2026 — point 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
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
1,348 ac of this district has burned — 0% 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 BILLINGS LOGAN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, 47 km from the unit’s center. NOAA ISD-Lite hourly observations.
Harvest — agency survey estimates
Elk · 2025
70 harvested
no district-level hunter estimate published
24 bulls · 46 cows · 0 calves
Elk harvest · 2004–2025 · 15 → 70
Deer · 2025 · success = harvest ÷ hunters
58.6% success
952 taken by 1,625 hunters · 8,330 days afield
705 bucks · 240 does · 7 fawns
NR 62% · Res 58% success
Deer hunter success · 2004–2025 · 64% → 59%
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, file an issue — 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 502 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.
