I am 65 years old and have been a avid hunter and fisherman all my life. My years away from home during the Vietnam Era made me yearn for the outdoors. I built a new home five years ago south of Stevensville, north of Bell Crossing.
Every year about the middle to the end of November a herd of elk would cross Eastside Highway and enter the “legal” zone for rifle hunters. This annul occurrence was the green light for every slob hunter in the Bitterroot to bail out of their pickups and began shooting indiscriminately directly into the milling herd of helpless elk. The result has been dozens of wounded animals, “hunters” shooting at houses, shooting back towards Eastside Highway, shooting from the road, and at least in one instance shooting from the other side of the highway. FWP and other law enforcement always show up and apparently do nothing because the same cast of characters shows up every year to “hunt.”
This hunting season the area was designated a special draw area to try to eliminate the aforementioned problems. True to form not once but twice during the week of Thanksgiving the annual slaughter occurred. Once north of Bell Crossing and once south of Bell Crossing. When the landowner arrived south of Bell Crossing he was verbally assaulted and the “hunters” threatened to call the sheriff for harassing them while they were “hunting.” The bottom line is I can totally understand why landowners have closed their land to hunting and fishing. When you witness this very public display of horrific hunting ethics, the worst kind of lack of regard for landowner rights, the disregard of hunting regulations, and the loss of respect for hunters in general, you realize that something must be done.
I would ask FWP to respond to this problem with some appropriate sanctions to these repeat violators. Someone needs to lose their job if this doesn’t change. I would ask Stevensville residents to get behind this change before someone is killed by this annual “hunt” by these slob hunters.
Michael Edward Flynn
Stevensville