Unit M285 (Lower Blackfoot)

Montana Hunting Guide — Moose

Unit M285 lies in Missoula and Powell 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 M285

Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Montana Unit M285 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 M285

Unit M285 lies in Missoula and Powell 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.

Where to Find Shiras Moose in Unit M285

What Montana FWP publishes for unit M285 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 Missoula and Powell counties.

The lines of the unit: Gold Creek-Boles Creek, Wolverine Peak and Flathead-Blackfoot River

Montana FWP draws unit M285 in Missoula and Powell counties with a boundary that runs on Interstate 90, US Highway 93, State Route 83 and USFS Trail 246, and on Gold Creek-Boles Creek, Wolverine Peak, Flathead-Blackfoot River and Youngs Pass, walked corner by corner in its hunting district legal descriptions. That is a legal description, not a habitat map. What it does give you is the way in: the rivers and highways you cross, and the divides that decide which drainage you end up in.

High ground inside the line: McLeod Peak, Sunday Mountain and Morrell Mountain

Named high points inside the unit include McLeod Peak at 8,610 feet, Sunday Mountain at 8,167 feet, Morrell Mountain at 8,147 feet, Murphy Peak at 8,144 feet and Matt Mountain at 8,068 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: Steves Pass, Lost Prairie and Jamison Gulch

Below them sit Steves Pass at 4,847 feet, Lost Prairie at 4,469 feet, Jamison Gulch at 3,796 feet, Ninemile Prairie at 3,762 feet and Black Canyon at 3,719 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.

Water: Summit Springs

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

Unit M285 terrain and land status

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

Named features inside the unit

Glass from: McLeod Peak (8,610 ft), Sunday Mountain (8,167 ft), Morrell Mountain (8,147 ft), Murphy Peak (8,144 ft)

Holding ground: Youngs Pass (6,875 ft), Grizzly Basin (6,704 ft), Grant Creek Basin (6,509 ft), Summit 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 M285

Montana FWP publishes no Shiras moose success figure for unit M285 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 Triangle Peak, Nome Point and Sheep Mountain

Take a position on one of Triangle Peak (7,773 ft), Nome Point (7,709 ft), Sheep Mountain (7,634 ft) and Mineral Peak (7,441 ft) and be on it before light. Work the morning with the air falling away from you, then accept that by mid-morning the wind has reversed and the plan has to change with it. 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: Interstate 90, US Highway 93 and State Route 83

We have no road inventory for this unit, so the only routes we can name are the ones Montana FWP draws the boundary with: Interstate 90, US Highway 93, State Route 83, USFS Trail 246 and State Route 200. 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. Park on the boundary and walk; a unit you can only enter from its rim rewards whoever is willing to leave the truck at the rim.

A first plan from the pins on this page

The map above marks McLeod Peak, Sunday Mountain, Morrell Mountain and Murphy Peak as places to see from, and Youngs Pass, Grizzly Basin, Grant Creek Basin and Summit 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.

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Moose Success Rates

Montana FWP's 2023 harvest estimates carry no Shiras moose row for unit M285 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	156	0.6%	—

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 M285. 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

Moderate to strenuous. Willow bottoms, wet meadows, and Gravelly Range ridges dominate.

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Hunting Pressure

Low for moose specifically; moderate general deer and elk traffic exists in road-accessible portions.

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Weather

Gravelly Range weather can turn quickly. Plan for sustained cold and early snow at elevation.

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Permit Notes

All HD 285-50 licenses are issued through FWP's special drawing.

Note: Coordinate with FWP Region 3 biologists for current moose sighting and habitat-condition notes.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Colorado unit M285?

Unit M285 lies in Missoula and Powell counties. Montana FWP draws unit M285 with a boundary that runs on Interstate 90, US Highway 93, State Route 83 and USFS Trail 246, and on Gold Creek-Boles Creek, Wolverine Peak, Flathead-Blackfoot River and Youngs Pass, walked corner by corner in its hunting district legal descriptions.

What is the Shiras moose success rate in unit M285?

Montana FWP publishes no Shiras moose success figure we can tie to unit M285 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