Standing in a patch of bitterroot, serviceberry and sage at the foot of Elk Mountain, Mr. Hettick called apps such as onX “the best thing that’s happened to access in years.”

The first time I showed the app to someone who had never used it, I had to gently extract my phone from the person’s hand. This happened the second time, too, and was followed by an email requesting the name of “that mapping program.”

The app is called onX. Its basic functionality is simple: onX shows you where you are in real time, using a blue dot exactly the same as the one on Google Maps. The difference is that onX is designed to show where you are in a forest, on a mountain or in a canyon. It has been around since 2009 and is popular with hunters and outdoor enthusiasts.

…

“Hunting has become big business,” Mr. Herring said. “And people who have leased land for hunting don’t want people who aren’t paying to be on it. As a result, the issue of trespassing has gotten hotter every year.”

Resentment of landowners and commercial hunting has heated up as well.

Backcountry Hunters & Anglers helped the Missouri hunters find lawyers, rallied its 35,000 members for support and started a GoFundMe page, which has raised more than $110,000 to pay the hunters’ legal bills.

By Ben Ryder Howe

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Wild Sustenance: Innovative Course Introduces UM Students to Hunting – “This was the coolest and most practical class I have ever taken,” Hanson said, “and my freezer is the proof.”

“Almost all of us who are hunters learned from relatives and friends. We had opportunities,” said course instructor Joshua Millspaugh, UM’s Boone and Crockett Professor of Wildlife Conservation. “There is such an impediment to those who didn’t have that opportunity. The students that are here say, ‘I’ve always been interested in learning more, but I don’t know where to start.’

Backcountry Hunters & Anglers North American Rendezvous 2023 – 3/16-18 – Missoula, Montana

BHA’s North American Rendezvous is the year’s largest gathering of public lands and waters advocates, and it’s bound to be a heck of a party. Be sure to come celebrate with new and old friends alike all while raising funds to support our wild public lands, waters and wildlife!

UM wild sustenance course teaches hunting and conservation through real-world experience

Students were taught about female engagement in the male dominated sport, how hunting and conservation go hand-in-hand and indigenous views on hunting. But the highlight of the class for most students was outside of the classroom.

Gear library looks to break down barriers for Montana hunters

Missoula women start service that allows new hunters to borrow equipment and ‘feel really welcome in the space.’