Unit M104 (West Cabinet Mountains)

Montana Hunting Guide — Moose

Unit M104 lies in Lincoln County. Montana FWP publishes no per-unit Shiras moose success figure we can verify for this unit. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

View Draw Odds Montana Hunting Guide

Build your own PDF hunt guide for Unit M104

Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Montana Unit M104 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.

Moose guide

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Moose Hunting in Unit M104

Unit M104 lies in Lincoln County. Montana FWP publishes no per-unit Shiras moose success figure we can verify for this unit. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

Where to Find Shiras Moose in Unit M104

Montana FWP draws an exact line around unit M104 and says nothing about where the Shiras moose 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 County.

The lines of the unit: Bull Lake and Kootenai River

Montana FWP draws unit M104 in Lincoln County with a boundary that runs on Route 56 and Highway 2, and on Bull Lake and Kootenai River, walked corner by corner in its hunting district legal descriptions. Read it as a frame, not as a hint about animals. Those features are what you will check against the map all week, and the divides among them are the ones that matter.

High ground inside the line: Savage Mountain, Sawtooth Mountain and Spar Peak

Named high points inside the unit include Savage Mountain at 6,866 feet, Sawtooth Mountain at 6,712 feet, Spar Peak at 6,576 feet, Survey Mountain at 6,396 feet and Drift Peak at 6,337 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Moose need standing water and willow, so on dry country they are tied to the few drainages that hold both.

Holding ground: Surprise Draw, Carr Draw and Weasel Gulch

Below them sit Surprise Draw at 3,366 feet, Carr Draw at 3,085 feet, Weasel Gulch at 2,358 feet and Emma Gulch at 2,354 feet. These are the folds worth watching, and the ones other hunters walk past on the way to somewhere steeper. Pick the one with the least road on its upwind side.

Unit M104 terrain and land status

Measured from the unit boundary, not from the agency write-up

Named features inside the unit

Glass from: Savage Mountain (6,866 ft), Sawtooth Mountain (6,712 ft), Spar Peak (6,576 ft), Survey Mountain (6,396 ft)

Holding ground: Surprise Draw (3,366 ft)

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 Shiras Moose in Unit M104

Montana FWP publishes no Shiras moose success figure for unit M104 that we can tie to this unit alone, so we won't quote one. The plan: walk the willow bottoms slowly at first and last light and look for fresh browse before you look for the animal.

Glassing from Spruce Mountain, Mount Vernon and Goat Mountain

Take a position on one of Spruce Mountain (5,754 ft), Mount Vernon (5,569 ft), Goat Mountain (5,411 ft) and Pony Mountain (5,103 ft) and be on it before light. In the dark the air runs downhill. Pick an approach that doesn't send it into the country you want to see, and plan to move once the slope warms. A tripod is worth more here than another hour of walking. On the rut hunts, late September bulls answer a cow call near water.

The way in: Route 56 and Highway 2

We have no road inventory for this unit, so the only routes we can name are the ones Montana FWP draws the boundary with: Route 56 and Highway 2. Those are its edges, not its interior — useful because they are where you leave the pavement, and useless for telling you what the inside is like. Check each of them on a current motor-vehicle-use map before you count on it, because a line on a boundary description is not a promise of public access.

A first plan from the pins on this page

The map above marks Savage Mountain, Sawtooth Mountain, Spar Peak and Survey Mountain as places to see from, and Surprise Draw as ground to watch. Each pin is a named feature verified to fall inside the unit line, not a spot anyone has hunted. Take the pair you can reach on one road and treat the rest as a second trip.

What we can't tell you

Some of the ground named above carries no land-status flag we trust, so check ownership on a current layer before you hunt it. We have no Shiras moose success figure for this unit that survives checking against Montana FWP's own harvest and hunter counts, and we would rather say so than print a statewide average as though it were measured here.

Montana rules that decide your day

Summarised from FWP regulations. They change — read the current regulations and your permit-tag before you hunt.

Legal shooting hours

Big game may be taken from half an hour before sunrise to half an hour after sunset.

Motorized retrieval

Montana has no general off-road retrieval allowance; travel stays on open routes.

Tagging

Validate the tag and attach it to the carcass before moving the animal.

Leaving meat

Wasting game meat is illegal.

Where you may not shoot

Occupied structures — No discharging a firearm within 150 yards of an occupied dwelling without permission, and no shooting from or across a public road.

Moose: where to put the shot

Broadside, behind the shoulder and a third up. Moose look slow to react — the first shot has to count.

Shots to refuse

Where it falls decides your next two days. Avoid shots that drop a moose in water or a bog.
A .30-06 class cartridge minimum, with a bullet built for heavy bone.

Plan the carry: roughly 350– 500 lb of boned-out meat, before head and hide — four or more large coolers, or a processor. ProHunt planning estimate, not an agency figure.

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Moose Success Rates

Montana FWP's 2023 harvest estimates carry no Shiras moose row for unit M104 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.

Moose Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts (n/p)
Rifle — General either sex (resident)	4	203	2.0%	—
Rifle — General either sex (nonresident)	1	30	3.3%	—

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 Engine

Montana FWP's draw recap has no Shiras moose record we can tie to unit M104. 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

Planning Notes

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Terrain Difficulty

Strenuous. Wet cedar-hemlock bottoms, dense willow-alder complexes, and steep timbered sidehills dominate.

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Hunting Pressure

Low for moose specifically. General deer and elk traffic exists in road-accessible portions.

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Weather

Northwest Montana is wet. Plan for sustained rain and early snow at elevation.

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Permit Notes

All HD 104-50 permits are issued through FWP's special drawing.

Note: Verify current USFS road-closure status before the opener because Kootenai NF gates change seasonally.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Colorado unit M104?

Unit M104 lies in Lincoln County. Montana FWP draws unit M104 with a boundary that runs on Route 56 and Highway 2, and on Bull Lake and Kootenai River, walked corner by corner in its hunting district legal descriptions.

What is the Shiras moose success rate in unit M104?

Montana FWP publishes no Shiras moose success figure we can tie to unit M104 on its own — the 2023 harvest tables either omit the unit or report it in a grouping we could not read back to it reliably. Rather than quote a statewide average as though it were measured here, we say so. Check Montana FWP's current harvest estimates before you apply.

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Sources & 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 — moose hunting districts (pp. 36-42) — 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