Lawmakers Debate Increasing Landowner Payments in Block Management Program

HELENA -- The Senate will now debate a bill passed in committee Friday that would double the limit on payments to landowners who opt to participate in the Block Management Program, which allows public hunting on private land through contracts with the state Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department.

Sen. Steve Hinebauch, R-Wibaux, is sponsoring Senate Bill 58, which would increase the maximum payments for landowners from $25,000 to $50,000. The committee voted to move the bill to the full House on a 12-0 vote.

The Block Management Program currently has about 1,200 owners involved and seven million acres of land available for hunters, according to FWP.

"Private landowners have a long history of supporting Montanas' hunting and wildlife heritage by allowing free public access to their lands," FWP Director Hank Worsech said in support of the bill at its first hearing Jan. 10.

The program currently pays $13 per day for each hunter allowed onto the private land and caps the number of payments at 1,900.

Only four members in the program right now would meet the number of hunters to receive the full $50,000, Worsech said.

In the 2021 legislative session, lawmakers increased the maximum agreement to the current $25,000, from $15,000.

"Even with the increase in 2021, we have 25 landowners who hit the new cap," Hinebauch said.

Ed Beall, Chairman of the Private Land/Public Wildlife Council said the number now is still considerably lower than market value and this bill would put the program in a better standing with private landowners.

The supporters of the bill said an increase in payments will maintain public land access and incentivize current and new owners to open their land to the public.

The Senate Fish and Game Committee also voted 12-0 Friday to advance two other bills – one that would remove an annual fee for lifetime fishing licenses and another that would stop requiring hunters to attach a paper tag to their kills.

Fish, Wildlife and Parks has so far sold 174 lifetime fishing passes to blind Montanans for $10 a piece, but still requires them to buy Aquatic Invasive Species prevention passes every year.

Senate Bill 88, sponsored by Sen. Willis Curdy, D-Missoula, would remove the requirement.

"It [the bill] is out there to make things easier for folks who are facing some disabilities," Curdy said

In 2019, Curdy sponsored House Bill 411, which set up different forms of funding to raise money for inspection stations to stop the spread of aquatic invasive species and AIS prevention passes are one of those mechanisms, tacking $2 per year to all residential fishing licenses.

HB 88 would make it so that just lifetime fishing passes would be exempt from the annual $2 purchase.

"We're just removing all the barriers and providing the lifetime license," said Robin Graham, the Operation and Financial Services Division Administrator for FWP.

Sen. Edie McClafferty, D-Butte, sponsored the third bill, Senate Bill 76, which removes the requirement to place a paper hunting tag on an animal's carcass.

Supporters of the bill told the committee that electronic hunting tags, which were introduced in 2022 and are on the rise, make the requirements to physically attach a tag to a carcass obsolete. In the first year, 15 percent of hunters elected to use the FWP app, which houses e-tags.

"People aren't going to be attaching their phones to a carcass," Sen. Daniel Emrich, R-Great Falls, said.

SB 76 would allow hunters to fill out their paper tags with the appropriate requirements but would allow hunters to simply put the tag in their pockets.

McClafferty said tags can often be lost or destroyed when they are directly attached to the animal.

Matt Leow, representing the Montana chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, said concerns that this system could be used to cheat the system were unfounded.

"Just like buying a replacement tag for $5 or printing paper tags at home, there's always been a way to cheat the system and the bill doesn't make that any easier," Leow said.

There was no opposition to any of the bills at the committee hearing.

Caven Wade is a reporter with the UM Legislative News Service, a partnership of the University of Montana School of Journalism, the Montana Broadcasters Association, the Montana Newspaper Association and the Greater Montana Foundation. He can be reached at [email protected].