Unit 103 (South Salish)
Montana Hunting Guide — Elk, Mule Deer
Unit 103 lies in Lincoln and Flathead counties and covers about 1,446 square miles. Ground runs from 3,032 to 5,816 feet. Montana FWP publishes no per-unit elk success figure we can verify for this unit. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.
Build your own PDF hunt guide for Unit 103
Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Montana Unit 103 guide around your hunt: three ranked spots with morning, afternoon and evening plays, a day-by-day plan, topo maps with every pin numbered, a camp and access plan, the legal and retrieval rules for this unit, shot discipline, a meat-care and pack-out plan, and a pre-trip checklist. Every coordinate sits on land recorded as public.
Free accounts get one report a year with the top spot unlocked. ProHunt Pro includes unlimited reports, all three spots, the full camp plan, and GPX/KML downloads for onX and Google Earth. Prefer to see one first? Open the builder and pick any unit.
Elk Hunting in Unit 103
Unit 103 lies in Lincoln and Flathead counties and covers about 1,446 square miles. Ground runs from 3,032 to 5,816 feet. Montana FWP publishes no per-unit elk success figure we can verify for this unit. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.
Where to Find Elk in Unit 103
Montana FWP draws an exact line around unit 103 and says nothing about where the elk stand inside it. Every place named below sits inside the unit line. Which of them holds animals in your season is for you to find out. The unit lies in Lincoln and Flathead counties. It runs to about 1,446 square miles.
The lines of the unit: Kootenai River, Sunday Creek and Basin Creek
Montana FWP draws unit 103 in Lincoln and Flathead counties with a boundary that runs on State Route 37, US Highway 2, USFS Road 315 and USFS Road 3520, and on Kootenai River, Sunday Creek, Basin Creek and Wolf Creek, walked corner by corner in its hunting district legal descriptions. It tells you the shape of the unit and nothing about its inhabitants. Its value is practical — those are the features you will navigate by, and the ridges that separate one day's country from another's.
High ground inside the line: Meadow Peak, Elk Divide and Elk Mountain
Named high points inside the unit include Meadow Peak at 6,699 feet, Elk Divide at 6,582 feet, Elk Mountain at 6,582 feet, Calx Mountain at 6,540 feet and Elk Ridge at 6,368 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Elk on low, open country live on distance and visibility, so they see you first.
Holding ground: Star Meadow, Snag Gulch and Hill Meadow
Below them sit Star Meadow at 3,992 feet, Snag Gulch at 3,871 feet, Hill Meadow at 3,664 feet, Shorts Meadow at 3,611 feet and Lost Prairie at 3,533 feet. That is the low country of the unit — the ground animals drop into when they are pushed or when the weather turns. Reaching the edge of one before light beats reaching its middle at noon.
Water: Lunch Box Spring and Lemonade Spring
The water inside the unit line comes to 1,039 mapped stream reaches, 58 lakes and 197 stock tanks. Named sources include Lunch Box Spring and Lemonade Spring. On ground with that many tanks, knowing which two or three hold water in your season is the most useful thing a scouting trip can tell you.
Reading the land status
Our ownership read for this unit is approximate — it comes out as National Forest 60%, Private / Other 32% and State Trust 8%, so treat it as a starting point and check a current land-status layer before you plan a route. The unit runs from 3,032 feet to 5,816 feet, averaging 4,384 — enough relief to separate summer range from winter range.
Unit 103 terrain and land status
Measured from the unit boundary, not from the agency write-up
The lay of it
- 3,032–5,816 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 4,384 ft ; peaks can run higher.
- 1,445.6 sq mi inside the boundary. Big enough that picking one drainage beats driving three.
Who owns the ground
- National Forest — 60%
- State Trust — 8%
- Private / Other — 32%
Roughly 68% is public. Carry a land-status layer anyway — these are area percentages, not a map of where the boundaries fall.
Water on the ground
- 197 tanks
- 1,039 stream segments
- 58 lakes
Counts from mapping data, so this is how many exist, not how many hold water in a dry year. Sitting water only pays where you find fresh tracks.
Named features inside the unit
Glass from: Meadow Peak (6,699 ft), Elk Divide (6,582 ft), Calx Mountain (6,540 ft), Mount Swaney (6,334 ft)
Holding ground: Martin Divide (5,382 ft), Trixie Pass (5,304 ft), Lefthand Meadow (4,498 ft), Lunch Box Spring, Lemonade Spring
Every one of these was tested against the unit polygon before it went on the map. They are starting points, not agency recommendations.
How to Hunt Elk in Unit 103
Elk Success Rates
Montana FWP's 2023 harvest estimates carry no elk row for unit 103 that we can read back to this unit on its own. Where the agency reports a unit inside a grouping, or prints a table our parser cannot resolve to a single column, we leave the number out rather than publish a statewide average as though it had been measured here. Montana FWP's current harvest estimates are the place to check before you apply.
Elk Draw Odds
| Season | Tags | Applicants | Draw % | Pts (n/p) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rifle — B License either sex (resident) | 22 | 1,188 | 1.9% | — |
| Rifle — B License either sex (nonresident) | 0 | 15 | 0.0% | — |
Data from 2025 draw results. Each row is one residency pool — read the label before the number. This agency publishes no point thresholds, so the Pts column stays blank and these are pool odds, not what a point total draws.
Open in Draw Odds EngineMontana FWP's draw recap has no elk record we can tie to unit 103. That usually means the licence is sold over the counter, is issued under a hunt code covering several units, or was not offered in the years we hold. Rather than estimate a point requirement, we leave it blank — check Montana FWP's own draw recap for the hunt code you mean to apply for.
Unit Logistics & Expectations
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Colorado unit 103?
What is the elk success rate in unit 103?
Where do you stay and resupply for a unit 103 hunt?
What is the mule deer success rate in unit 103?
Plan Your Hunt with ProHunt Pro
Unlock advanced tactics, the Tag-to-Trail Planner, AI hunt strategy assistant, and personalized camp and trip execution plans.
Upgrade to Pro — $49/yrSources & Verification
Every fact on this page is tied to a primary source below. Last fact-checked 2026-10-24.
- Montana FWP Hunting District Legal Descriptions, 2026/2027 — deer-elk hunting districts (pp. 19-35) — Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks · supports: GMU boundary description, Counties the unit lies in · accessed 2026-10-24
- FWP hunting district feature services — deer/elk, antelope, moose, bighorn sheep and mountain goat districts (2026 and 2027 seasons) — Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks · supports: Mapped extent of the unit, Which named ground falls inside the unit line · accessed 2026-10-24