Every hunter in Montana knows the drill: you wait all year for the Fish, Wildlife & Parks tentative season booklet, study the maps, argue with your buddies over quotas, and then—bam—two commissioners drop amendments at the eleventh hour that could completely flip your plans. That’s exactly what’s happening right now for the 2026 and 2027 big-game seasons.
Two experienced commissioners, guys who have spent decades in the field just like the rest of us, have put forward changes that weren’t even on the original FWP radar. And with the comment deadline closing fast, this might be one of those rare years where speaking up actually tips the scale.
First up is Commissioner Bill Lane out of Region 7, the big southeast corner of the state that a lot of us chase elk in. Lane wants to kill the 798-20 elk permit altogether. For years that permit has been a headache—limited draw, tough odds, and you still had to burn your general tag to use it. Lane’s fix? Scrap it completely, bump the straight 799-20 antlerless license quota from 280 cows up to 325, and keep the second antlerless B license alive in hunting districts 702, 704, and 705.
Translation for the guy sitting in his pickup right now: if this passes, 45 more hunters get a guaranteed cow tag in some of the best elk country in eastern Montana, and nobody has to mess with that extra 798 permit anymore. That’s real opportunity, especially if you’ve got a freezer to fill and points are stacking up like cordwood.
Over in central Montana, Commissioner KC Walsh is throwing another curveball that archery hunters are going to love. Walsh is pushing for a brand-new limited either-sex archery-only elk permit that would be valid across four solid districts: 411, 412, 417, and 426. The proposed quota? A generous 1,300 permits.
Think about that for a second. Thirteen hundred bowhunters could draw a tag that lets them hunt elk—branch bulls or cows—starting the first week of September, long before the rifle crowd shows up. Districts 411 and 426 in particular have been producing some absolute giants the last few years, and early-season access without the orange army everywhere could be a game changer.
Here’s the part that ought to get every Montana hunter’s attention: neither one of these ideas came from FWP biologists. These are coming straight from the commissioners themselves—guys who wear the same muddy boots and have sat around the same campfires we have. Sometimes the department gets tunnel vision on “management objectives” and forgets there are real people trying to put meat in the freezer and memories in the books. When commissioners step in like this, it’s usually because they’re hearing the same gripes at the coffee shop and the feed store that you are.
The clock is ticking. The general public comment period on the full 2026-2027 regulations closed November 23, but Montana FWP opened a special window just for these two amendments. You’ve got until November 30—less than a week from when most of us are reading this—to get your thoughts in. After that, the Fish and Wildlife Commission meets in Helena on December 4 to hammer out the final regs.
If you hunt elk in Region 7 or swing a bow in Region 4, this is one of those moments where a quick email or phone call could actually matter. Tell them whether scraping the 798-20 and adding 45 more 799-20 tags makes sense for the herds and the hunters. Tell them if 1,300 new archery permits is too many, too few, or just right for those central Montana units.
Because come December 4, the talking stops and the regs get locked in for two full seasons. And once they’re printed, we live with them—good, bad, or somewhere in between.
A lot of us have watched opportunity slowly shrink over the years. Quotas cut here, a permit turned either-sex there, a season shortened by a week. Every once in a while the pendulum swings the other way. This might be one of those times.
Get your comments in before November 30. Worst case, nothing changes and we’re right back where we started. Best case? You’re holding a couple extra elk tags in 2026 that wouldn’t have existed if a couple commissioners hadn’t decided to fight for them.
In Montana elk hunting, that’s about as good as it gets.
