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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.
