Unit M215 (East Deer Lodge)

Montana Hunting Guide — Moose

Unit M215 lies in Powell and Deer Lodge counties. 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 M215

Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Montana Unit M215 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 M215

Where to Find Shiras Moose in Unit M215

What Montana FWP publishes for unit M215 is a boundary, not a Shiras moose map. 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 Powell and Deer Lodge counties.

The lines of the unit: Continental Divide and MacDonald Pass

Montana FWP draws unit M215 in Powell and Deer Lodge counties with a boundary that runs on Highway 12, Interstate 15 and Interstate 90, and on Continental Divide and MacDonald Pass, walked corner by corner in its hunting district legal descriptions. Read it as a frame, not as a hint about animals. 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: Thunderbolt Mountain, Cliff Mountain and Electric Peak

Named high points inside the unit include Thunderbolt Mountain at 8,578 feet, Cliff Mountain at 8,367 feet, Electric Peak at 8,334 feet, Sugarloaf Mountain at 8,244 feet and Black Mountain at 8,015 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: American Gulch, Woodville Canyon and Horse Canyon

Below them sit American Gulch at 6,122 feet, Woodville Canyon at 6,102 feet, Horse Canyon at 6,101 feet, Alaska Gulch at 6,051 feet and Connors Gulch at 6,028 feet. That is the low country of the unit — the ground animals drop into when they are pushed or when the weather turns. Work out which of them you can see from one position before you pick a camp.

Water: Limburger Spring

Named sources include Limburger Spring. Nothing in the data says which of them run in autumn, so a scouting trip earns its fuel.

Unit M215 terrain and land status

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

Named features inside the unit

Glass from: Thunderbolt Mountain (8,578 ft), Cliff Mountain (8,367 ft), Electric Peak (8,334 ft), Black Mountain (8,015 ft)

Holding ground: Blackfoot Meadows (6,623 ft), MacDonald Pass (6,314 ft), American Gulch (6,122 ft), Limburger 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 Shiras Moose in Unit M215

Montana FWP publishes no Shiras moose success figure for unit M215 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 O'Keefe Mountain, Forbidding Ridge and Treasure Mountain

Take a position on one of O'Keefe Mountain (7,530 ft), Forbidding Ridge (7,460 ft), Treasure Mountain (7,384 ft) and Jericho Mountain (7,374 ft) and be on it before light. Cold air slides downhill in the dark, so keep your scent out of the bowl you mean to watch; expect the thermals to turn uphill an hour after the sun reaches the slope. Give a basin forty minutes before you decide it is empty. On the rut hunts, late September bulls answer a cow call near water.

The way in: Highway 12, Interstate 15 and Interstate 90

We have no road inventory for this unit, so the only routes we can name are the ones Montana FWP draws the boundary with: Highway 12, Interstate 15 and Interstate 90. 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 Thunderbolt Mountain, Cliff Mountain, Electric Peak and Black Mountain as places to see from, and Blackfoot Meadows, MacDonald Pass, American Gulch and Limburger Spring as ground to watch. Each pin is a named feature verified to fall inside the unit line, not a spot anyone has hunted. Join two of them into a morning: be on the first before light, move to the second once the thermals turn.

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 M215 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)	1	225	0.4%	—

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 M215. 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. Wilderness access, extended pack-outs, and wet willow bottoms are the norm.

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Hunting Pressure

Low for moose specifically. Wilderness designation limits mechanized access but elk and deer hunters can share access points.

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Weather

Early snow is possible at elevation. Plan for cold mornings and sustained periods of wet weather.

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Permit Notes

Permits for HD 215-50 are issued exclusively through FWP's special drawing.

Note: Coordinate pack-animal or raft recovery plans in advance because wilderness regulations restrict motorized retrieval.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Colorado unit M215?

Unit M215 lies in Powell and Deer Lodge counties. Montana FWP draws unit M215 with a boundary that runs on Highway 12, Interstate 15 and Interstate 90, and on Continental Divide and MacDonald Pass, walked corner by corner in its hunting district legal descriptions.

What is the Shiras moose success rate in unit M215?

Montana FWP publishes no Shiras moose success figure we can tie to unit M215 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