The fight over access to the Mitchell Slough in the Bitterroot seems far from resolved. The latest issue to come boiling to the front is over waterfowl hunting. Montana’s Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission will decide Thursday on a petition to close a portion of the Mitchell Slough filed by longtime Bitterroot ranchers John and Kathy Lewis. The Lewis’ filed the petition last summer, saying the stream was too narrow and winding to legally hunt waterfowl. Other land owners along the slough have placed feeding stations out that essentially make waterfowl hunting illegal due to current Montana law forbidding waterfowl hunting near a feeding station.
The Montana Supreme Court has Ruled
The State of Montana took comments on the petition with a majority favoring keeping the slough open. The Montana Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that Mitchell Slough was a natural stream, ending a long, hard-fought battle between landowners who claimed the waterway was an irrigation ditch and sportsmen who said the slough should be open to the public under the state’s stream access law.
Mitchell Slough Should Remain Open
While I am in firm support of Mitchell Slough remaining open throughout it’s length, I believe the hunting of waterfowl from the slough is irresponsible. Responsible hunters would never hunt in an area where game retrieval would cause the hunter to break trespass laws. The issue with waterfowl hunting on Mitchell Slough is a majority of harvested waterfowl would come down on private property. This inevitable conclusion to a successful shot places temptation on the hunter to either break trespass laws or leave harvested waterfowl to rot. Neither outcome is acceptable.
Mitchell Slough Compromise
Closing any portion of Mitchell Slough opens the flood gates for an all out attack on the Montana Stream Access Law, though. If these flood gates are opened, sportsmen today and in future generations will have suffered a great loss. After all, it is the future generations of sportsmen for whom we should be fighting. The best solution may be to follow a Montana big game law that prohibits hunting from a stream or river flowing through private property without landowner permission. While such a law would deny unlimited access for hunters, it would retain unlimited access to Mitchell Slough for other uses under the Montana Stream Access Law. Such a compromise would also remove the possibility of the Montana Supreme Court ruling in favor of the landowners and potentially having thousands of miles of Montana’s streams closed to any access without permission.
