Montana Mountain Goat

In Montana, the mountain goat population continues to hold steady throughout most of the state. Since 2019, the statewide tag allocation has slowly been on the rise, and for 2025, up to 16 tags may be drawn by non-residents. As usual, most of the hunts in region 3 will offer a non-resident tag and 314 and 323 will both offer up to three. Last year, non-resident goat applicants increased by over 8% with an all-time high of 3,788 throwing their name in the hat for a Montana mountain goat tag, with 14 of those being successful in beating the odds.

For anyone looking to do a self-guided or outfitted mountain goat hunt, Montana has got to be on your radar. The list of hunts available this year will offer the type of hunt anyone is after. Most of the options will be physical backcountry type hunts in grizzly country. If you’re after a hunt with an extremely low probability of coming home with a story of a grizzly encounter, you’ll want to choose between units 313 and 350. The hunt in 350 can be as physically easy as you want it to be with a bunch of goats dropping down to lower elevations in November as they stage for the rut. These goats can be found within sight of the road system. For the most part, Montana’s mountain goat lives in steep, rocky country, so be mentally and physically prepared before you apply for your hunt. If you want to harvest a true giant billy, you can expect to find them in the most remote, hard-to-reach sections of the units. If you don’t mind a shorter-haired goat, we recommend you hunt early before the snow piles up. Every year, a few hunters get snowed out of their high-country units as they waited for good hair and instead ended up with tag soup.

Be sure you look over our goat table as we have included all non-resident goat hunts available this year. All of these hunts offer a chance at taking a 9” or better goat if you’re willing to hunt hard and can pass on a few decent goats along the way. If you are a Montana resident and would like to talk about the other units available to you, give us a call. There are some great billies roaming Montana’s mountains, and if you are after an opportunity to spend some time in some of the most impressive country the state has to offer, make sure to have your application in by May 1st!

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