Unit M270 (East Fork Bitterroot)

Montana Hunting Guide — Moose

Unit M270 lies in Ravalli 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 M270

Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Montana Unit M270 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

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.

Moose Hunting in Unit M270

Unit M270 lies in Ravalli 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 M270

What Montana FWP publishes for unit M270 is a boundary, not a Shiras moose map. So the ground below is the unit's own and the read on where to start is ours, labelled as such. The unit lies in Ravalli County.

The lines of the unit: Spade Creek, Piquette Creek and Shook Mountain

Montana FWP draws unit M270 in Ravalli County with a boundary that runs on US Highway 93, USFS Trail 601, USFS Trail 56 and State Route 38, and on Spade Creek, Piquette Creek, Shook Mountain and Medicine Point, 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: Bare Hill, Saddle Mountain and Cliff Point

Named high points inside the unit include Bare Hill at 8,741 feet, Saddle Mountain at 8,460 feet, Cliff Point at 8,303 feet, Lewis and Clark Ridge at 8,185 feet and Shook Mountain at 7,559 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: Porcupine Saddle, Lost Trail Pass and Water Sign Meadows

Below them sit Porcupine Saddle at 7,165 feet, Lost Trail Pass at 7,017 feet, Water Sign Meadows at 6,932 feet, Two Bear Meadows at 6,805 feet and Lick Creek Saddle at 6,752 feet. That is the low country of the unit — the ground animals drop into when they are pushed or when the weather turns. Two you can watch from a single knob is worth more than five you have to drive between.

Water: Sleeping Child Hot Springs, Clough Springs and Pollywog Spring

Named sources include Sleeping Child Hot Springs, Clough Springs, Pollywog Spring and Star Falls. Nothing in the data says which of them run in autumn, so a scouting trip earns its fuel.

Unit M270 terrain and land status

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

Named features inside the unit

Glass from: Bare Hill (8,741 ft), Saddle Mountain (8,460 ft), Cliff Point (8,303 ft), Shook Mountain (7,559 ft)

Holding ground: Mosquito Meadows (8,155 ft), Buck Ridge Meadows (7,894 ft), Skalkaho Pass (7,259 ft), Sleeping Child Hot Springs, Clough Springs

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 M270

Montana FWP publishes no Shiras moose success figure for unit M270 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 Deer Mountain, Hilltop and Tolan Ridge

Take a position on one of Deer Mountain (7,277 ft), Hilltop (7,252 ft), Tolan Ridge (7,251 ft) and Cold Spring Hill (6,851 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. Glass the edges first, then the shaded timber, then the edges again as the light goes. On the rut hunts, late September bulls answer a cow call near water.

The way in: US Highway 93, USFS Trail 601 and USFS Trail 56

We have no road inventory for this unit, so the only routes we can name are the ones Montana FWP draws the boundary with: US Highway 93, USFS Trail 601, USFS Trail 56, State Route 38 and State Route 501. 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. Pick the edge nearest the country you mean to hunt and work in from it on foot, rather than driving the perimeter looking for a way through.

A first plan from the pins on this page

The map above marks Bare Hill, Saddle Mountain, Cliff Point and Shook Mountain as places to see from, and Mosquito Meadows, Buck Ridge Meadows, Skalkaho Pass and Sleeping Child Hot Springs 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.

Pro Members Only

Upgrade to Pro to unlock this section

Upgrade to Pro — $49/yr

Moose Success Rates

Montana FWP's 2023 harvest estimates carry no Shiras moose row for unit M270 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

Draw odds data not available for this specific unit/species combination in our database.

Search Montana Draw Odds

Pro Members Only

Upgrade to Pro to unlock this section

Upgrade to Pro — $49/yr

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Colorado unit M270?

Unit M270 lies in Ravalli County. Montana FWP draws unit M270 with a boundary that runs on US Highway 93, USFS Trail 601, USFS Trail 56 and State Route 38, and on Spade Creek, Piquette Creek, Shook Mountain and Medicine Point, walked corner by corner in its hunting district legal descriptions.

What is the Shiras moose success rate in unit M270?

Montana FWP publishes no Shiras moose success figure we can tie to unit M270 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.

Free Hunt Planning Tools

🎰 Montana Draw Odds Unit-level tag success rates 📅 Application Timeline Deadlines for all 9 states 🦌 Rut Forecast Peak rut timing by species 💰 Hunt Cost Calculator Budget your entire hunt

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/yr

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