NW Montana Longbeards

07/07/2026

"The more time I spend as director of Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, the more humbled I am by the strength and success of our many partnerships.

As FWP celebrates its 125th anniversary, it’s important that we also pay tribute to our partners. For more than a century, they have helped make what we do possible, and we’re proud of all that we are able to accomplish working together."

Read more from Director, Christy Clark, about our success through strong partnerships here: http://fwp.mt.gov/montana-outdoors

05/29/2026

05/29/2026

05/26/2026

With more than 300 projects already making an impact for the NWTF's Habitat for the Hatch initiative, the team recently dedicated funding to six new projects that will make an impact at a landscape scale! The projects will add an additional 130,000 acres of positively impacted acres for premium nesting and brooding habitat across the southeast.

Photo Credit: Steve Turigliatto

05/23/2026

Can’t believe that we made this happen! We are so happy with how this event turned out and are looking forward to next year! Go read the article to learn more!!

Youth in "big sky country" are getting a chance to experience the life-changing power of the outdoors thanks to Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, NWTF-Montana and some generous landowners willing to open up their properties! And that is a win for our hunting heritage!

📷: Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks

05/18/2026

05/18/2026

Thank you to all of our supporters and donors. Our youth hunter this year had a wild ride! Weather, quite birds, and hard headed hens. She was able to fill her tag last night as birds moved back to roost in a small clear cut!

Your donations fitted her with a vest, pants, two jakects, some calls, and everything else to make her a future turkey hunter.

I think she's hooked, we'll maybe not on the 330 am wake ups but she powered through!

05/07/2026

04/15/2026

Happy opener everyone!! Good luck this season and let us know how you do!

04/15/2026

Sweet-talking a tom turkey into shooting range provides a thrilling way to shake off Montana’s long winter. https://qr1.be/QOLH1A

It’s mid-April, and as I hike down a ridge in the dark, the stars are aligning for me, both literally and figuratively.

The eastern horizon is just starting to lighten, and high overhead the Summer Triangle holds forth against the advancing dawn after its long seasonal retreat. The sound of air whistling through a courting Wilson’s snipe’s wings fills the basin, music that seems impossible to imagine coming from a bird. Back at ground level, a drumming ruffed grouse adds bass notes to the snipe’s soprano.

These harbingers of spring are always welcome sounds after the long Montana winter, but I’m even more excited to hear another bird call: the liquid gobble of a tom turkey roosted in a tree, preparing to flap down and begin rounding up his harem of hens.

Read or listen to the full story from Montana Outdoors here: https://fwp.mt.gov/montana-outdoors/archive/2026/calling-all-gobblers

✍️ by E. Donnall Thomas Jr.
📸 Photo by Jess McGlothlin