Landowners, Hunters Benefit From Block Management Program
The year 2020 marked the 25th anniversary of Fish, Wildlife and Parks’ Block Management Program.
This popular access program started locally across Montana in the mid-1980s. However, through HB195 in the 1995 Legislative Session, it created the program as it’s formally known today starting with the 1996 hunting season. Block Management provides public hunting opportunities on private land across the state and has created positive working relationships among landowners and hunters. Funding for Block Management comes from the sale of various licenses, including a portion of the resident and nonresident base hunting license, nonresident upland gamebird licenses, nonresident combination deer/elk licenses and chances sold in the Supertag license lottery.
For the 2020 hunting season, nearly 1,300 landowners enrolled about 7.2 million acres of land in the program.
FWP staff recently visited with landowners in the southeast, south central and northeast areas of Montana who have been involved with the Block Management program since its early days.
Northeast Montana
Seventy-seven landowners have been in the program for 25 or more years In northeast Montana’s Region 6, an amazing 77 cooperating landowners have been involved in the program for 25 or more years. The Region 6 program quickly climbed to more than 1 million acres by the late 90s, and today Region 6 Block Management includes nearly 1.3 million private land acres.
The program has been changing steadily since current hunting access coordinator Tim Potter took over in 2014.
“Our region has regularly been increasing in enrolled acres,” Potter said. “Thanks to the willing landowners that enroll their property and hats off to the biologists, wardens and Block Management technicians that help keep this program growing.”
Two landowners who have been involved with Block Management from the beginning are former Fish and Wildlife Commissioner Richard Stuker and Henry Gordon of Chinook. Both Stuker and Gordon are part of the North Blaine Block Management Area, which encompasses more than 85,000 acres. The area is a large mix of public and private land in northern Blaine County.
“We knew people were already hunting out there, and the mix of public and private land caused a lot of confusion for hunters,” Gordon said. “Putting this property into block management made it easier for hunters to get around. Plus, we were worried about hunters starting and leaving campfires and not having anyone out there to keep watch.”
Suker added, “The major reason we remain in the program is that we have FWP staff in our area during the hunting season keeping an eye on things.”
“Block Management is a good way to get a few dollars back for when people drive off trails or break fences,” says Gordon, “and we have wardens and seasonal Block Management technicians who can patrol and help enforce the rules of the BMA.”
Block management technician Tim Roth has been a “super person to work with,” says Gordon. “He’s stopped all kinds of people from driving off-road and finally has most of them educated.”
“Tim does a great job, along with the wardens, in keeping most of the problems under control,” added Stuker.
Both Stuker and Gordon enroll other portions of their property in Block Management, as well. According to Stuker, there are several advantages to enrolling land in Block Management as opposed to leasing or outfitting. “I have a number of friends and family that I wanted to ensure had the ability to continue to hunt on my property,” said Stuker. “Also, we have an abundant deer population on the ranch, and if you lease, it’s tougher to control deer populations.”
Leonard Swenson, the current president of the Silver Dollar and Whittmayer Grazing Associations in Valley County, was one of the original members of the associations that enrolled their collective deeded property in Block Management back in 1996.
Swenson said, the grazing associations are “part of the cow business, not the hunting business,” but Block Management was a good way for the associations to gain a few extra dollars in impact payments for hunters that were already hunting on or near their land.
Both grazing associations have acres “with a lot of federal and state land and some deeded, and it seemed like an easy way to allow hunting,” Swenson said. “FWP marks the boundaries pretty well and has sign-in boxes at most access points. Although we still have some problems of people driving on muddy roads and leaving gates open, it has worked out pretty well.”
Even though there are some issues with certain hunters abusing the rules, landowners know that most hunters appreciate the program.
Swenson has some of his own property near his home place enrolled as a BMA, and has developed many positive relationships with hunters over the year. “I have had hunters come back year after year, and sometimes they’ll bring homemade jelly or Wisconsin cheese.” “One time, a guy left a $100 bill and an apology note in the sign-in box, that he said it was to help fix a fence post that he broke,” added Gordon. “That was pretty neat, and I appreciated it.” “I get a lot of repeat hunters and we exchange Christmas cards with some of them every year,” Stuker said. “Also, hunters know the rules for my BMA, and if they see violations, they will tell FWP or myself. They know it’s a privilege to hunt on my private property, not a right.”
Hunters from Montana and other states know and appreciate the opportunity that Block Management provides.
“There just isn’t anything like it in any other state that I’ve hunted,” said Minnesota resident Bill Landgren, who has hunted a variety of Block Management properties for more than 10 years in Region 6. “I find the maps and rules easy to follow, and Block Management provides a great opportunity for me, especially for the agricultural land and bird hunting opportunities that I’m looking for.”
“The ease of access to so many different kinds of properties are why I hunt Block Management,” says Tim Zabrocki, a Montana resident hunter. “Compared to what I have experienced in other states, there is no comparison. To get the same kind of access in other states that landowners provide through Montana BMAs, you would likely have to pay large sums of money.”
Not only is Potter the hunting access coordinator for Region 6, his family has had their own property enrolled in Block Management for the last 10 years or so.
“I figured if I talk the talk, we better walk the walk,” laughs Potter. “Being enrolled in Block Management allows me to experience the same things that our cooperators do. Yes, sometimes there are issues when hunters aren’t following the rules. But for the most part, it’s a great way to help continue the great tradition of hunting in Montana.”
The 77 participating landowners in Region 6 include Robert Boyce, Gordon Cattle Co., Henry Gordon, Ed McMaster, Harry Ramberg, Richard Stuker, Terry Swank, Tilleman Family, Unruh Ranch, S Bar B Ranch, Stuker Ranch, Merle Thorstad Fam- ily, Austin & Green Cattle Co., B& J Livestock, Olsen Grain and Livestock, M. Hanson Ranch Limited Partnership, Virginia Koss, Milk River Land and Cattle, Burke Ranch, Christensen Ranch, Desert Coulee Ranch, Page Family, Page-Whitham Cattle Co., Pippin Family, Silver Dollar Grazing Association, Triple L Ranch Partnership, Boucher Ranch, James Kirkland, William Rathert, Charlie Creek Cattle Co., Johnston Farms, Longrass Farms, Cliff Hagfeldt, Gordon Nielsen, Alan Danelson, Julian Danelson, Thomas Cheetham, Richard Jensen, Gary Nelson, Gordon Stoner, Van Curen family, Dave Clark, Doug Clark, James Clark, Ralph Clark family, Robert Clark family, Don Elvsaas, Glenn Ostby, Schmitz family, Smith Farms, Flagen family, Karolyn Rued, Sunwall Farms Inc., Carla Erickson, Alfred Smith family, Violet Engelke family, Waters family, Orvis Nelson, Arnie Iverson, Wittmayer Grazing Association, Big Muddy Grazing Association, Ray Johnson, Donald Oelkers, Thomas Beck, Greg Hofman, Earl Siggard, Lee Cook, Ruth Hatfield family, Larry Thompson, Fred Tobiason family, Michelle Christoffersen, Pat Waters, David Christoffersen, Sandra Fox and Bruno Ostwald family.
Southeast Montana
“You could make it what you wanted to make it” In 1988, after being approached by a biologist from FWP, southeastern Montana rancher Clint McRae and his father, Wally, decided to give a new public hunting access program a try.
It was a chaotic time. Rosebud County had just been hit by the Early Bird Fire, one of the biggest the area had ever seen. Rocker Six Cattle Company was one of very few ranches that allowed hunting access, and they were inundated with hunters. Nearby, Colstrip was booming due to the development of the coal mine and power plant.
“One of the things that really attracted us to the program is that you could make it what you wanted to make it,” Clint McRae said of Block Management, as it came to be called. “We were so busy with cow work that we did not have time to deal with the inundation of hunters.”
FWP offered to provide a resource manager on site to administer access and act as a buffer. “That helped us manage not only the game, but also hunters,” McRae said.
It seemed like a viable step for the operation that McRae’s great-grandfather had established along Rosebud Creek in 1882. That original homestead, run by a cousin, is just up the creek from Rocker Six’s current headquarters on the Rosebud, and the southeastern boundary is the Tongue River.
“We said, ‘Let’s do it on a trial basis,’ and I’ve joked with the [FWP] region that we’ve been on trial ever since,” McRae said.
In the program’s infancy, there were few properties enrolled and not much financial incentive to join. Eventually, FWP was able to offer some funding, but for several years, the McRaes donated it back to help grow the program and take some pressure off their lands. They felt having an onsite manager was compensation enough.
Today, the ranch offers almost 31,000 acres of public hunting, including a couple small parcels of state and federal land accessed through the private property. It is excellent habitat for mule deer and white-tailed deer, antelope and upland birds.
This past season marked Hunting Access Technician Omer Krueger’s 20th year of administering permission to hunt Rocker Six land from his trailer on Rosebud Creek Road, along with his wife, Jeanette. McRae credits the Kruegers for much of the successful operation, along with the flexibility that the program offers.
A bad hunting experience shaped the way McRae wanted to regulate access on his family’s land. While hunting as a college student on public land, he rose up from a deep coulee to view an elk through his rifle scope, and his vision suddenly filled with orange as another hunter crossed his path. “It really scared me. I didn’t even know anybody was in the area,” he said.
For that reason, the McRaes only allow one group of hunters in designated areas per day.
“That’s the way I would have wanted to hunt, so that’s the way I wanted to set it up,” he said.
McRae feels one of the big misconceptions about the program is that, “If you go into Block Management, FWP tells you how to set up the program, and that just simply is not true. It’s flexible enough where you can form it to work for you. They don’t dictate how you graze cattle, or that you rest and rotate [pastures].”
The contract has worked well for many years. There were certainly times when dismal cattle markets made the family question the wisdom of staying in Block Management versus outfitting or leasing their land. But another major fire – and incredible generosity shown by sportsmen and women – convinced McRae to continue in the program.
“The acid test was in 2012, with the Ash Creek Fire,” McRae said. “We lost 8,000 acres of our place in a matter of hours. That was the worst day of my life. There were 26 miles of fence lying on the ground after that first day. I can’t stress what a hit that was; it was such a helpless feeling.”
“To the credit of [FWP] Region 7, and specifically a game warden by the name of Bill Dawson, he put a crew together of 20-some people – most I didn’t know – from sportsmen’s groups from across the state,” McRae recalled. “He pulled up in his personal pickup, heaped with wire and supplies donated from as far away as the Bitterroot Valley. We put in 6 miles of fence in really rough country, by hand, in one day.”
Without it, the cattle and horses could have roamed for miles after the fire burned 250,000 acres.
“Those hunters kicking in was really appreciated,” McRae said. “They didn’t have to do that.”
“I am deeply indebted to the hunting public in Montana for doing that,” he said.
McRae has always been happy to let people come out and hunt, particularly the locals, whom he knows appreciate it. He has even designated a Hunter Education area for first-year hunters to harvest their first deer.
“That’s pretty important, and builds relationships and builds bridges,” he said.
By now, McRae is seeing second, and third generations come to hunt, which pleases him. One of his longtime hunters is Darrell Brabec of Colstrip. Brabec met Wally McRae and his wife, Ruth, in church in the 1980s.
“Wally told me he started in Block Management, and to come on out – he needed some does shot,” Brabec recalled.
Brabec has been coming ever since. His son, Brandon, started coming at age 12, and he’s now 45. Next came the grandkids. Brabec has also brought many friends with him, along with their kids and grandkids.
“It’s been a longtime family hunting tradition,” he said.
Brabec likes the Rocker Six’s signup process, diverse habitat and convenience.
“We can leave here in the morning and be out there to hunt without spending a lot of travel time,” he said.
Brabec is a member of the Colstrip Sportsman’s Club and attends the Block Management appreciation dinner in Miles City every year. He and his wife help to round up door prizes for cooperators honored at the event. It’s one way he can show appreciation for the program and for families like the McRaes.
“They’re allowing hunters to keep our tradition and get out in the hills and hunt,” Brabec said.
“He’s just a good guy,” McRae said of Brabec. “Those kinds of things I certainly appreciate. He knows there’s pressures we feel, and we don’t have to do this.”
One of those pressures is a steady increase in nonresident hunters, who for the first time, outnumbered locals this year. McRae is happy to welcome visitors, but he thinks some education is needed. This year he drafted a letter sharing his philosophy about access and had Krueger give it to every hunter.
“It’s a privilege, and we have to treat it as such; I think that word needs to get out,” McRae said.
Summing up his 32 years in Block Management, he said, “It’s a three-way agreement between sportsmen, landowners and the department. It has lasted the test of time and is worthwhile to carry on. There are trials, tribulations and changes, but we have to carry on.”
“I’m very comfortable with this program, and I appreciate the way I’ve been treated by the public and the department, and the public supports it,” McRae said.
