Calling all fly fisher folk and river loving sports people near and far – Montana Trout Unlimited is organizing a Sportsperson’s Rally for Stream Access to be held the day of HB 309’s senate hearing next week. The Rally will start at 2 PM, Thursday, March 3rd in the Old Supreme Court Chambers in the Capital […]
Access and Public Lands
It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog. -Mark Twain Thanks to much appreciated mentions from TC at The Trout Underground and from the gang at Moldy Chum we’re having a few new friends stop by to read about HB 309 and the fight […]
As noted yesterday the Montana senate Ag, Livestock and Irrigation Committee has scheduled the (initial) hearing for HB 309 for March 3rd. Here’s a link to the committee’s web page – NOTE at the bottom of that page is a list of committee members with live links to each member’s contact information. Here’s a screen […]
What intelligent, involved, everyday folks around Montana are saying about HB 309….. From Wednesday’s Helena Independent Record – Attention all Montana hunters and anglers: Our friends in the Legislature are once again mounting their biannual assault on things we Montanans hold dear. A primary one of these things is access to our fish and wildlife […]
Tidbits of helpful news continue to cross the bow. Here’s a couple. From the Fishing Outfitters Association of Montana comes a transcript of FWP chief legal counsel Bob Lane’s testimony during the House Ag Sub-committee hearing of HB 309. Yeah, it’s long, but Mr. Lane knocks it out of the park as he details what’s […]
Tis best to weigh the enemy more mighty than he seems. – William Shakespeare The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. – John F. Kennedy Many, many thanks to those who continue to rally the troops to fight HB […]
We’ve been pestering Michael Gibson, Montana TU’s Outreach Director, over the past several days for TU’s spin on several issues related to the ongoing assault on Montana’s Stream Access Laws via HB 309. Yesterday he very graciously answered 10 questions we posed about HB 309 and several other topics. Untampered and uncensored responses follow, along […]
Wayne Mumford at WillFishforWork.com has done some digging and might just have laid out the root cause of HB 309. Here’s his post – it’s just too good to miss…….. I just happened on an old news article from the Missoulian dating back to the early days of the Mitchell Slough controversy. Bitterroot River Protective […]
We should have a couple of updates up today that will shed further light on the Montana Stream Access Law / HB 309 issue at hand. Hopefully some time this afternoon we’ll have up interview responses from Montana Senator Kendall Van Dyk and Michael Gibson, the Outreach Director for Montana TU. The bill is currently […]
After ashamedly cruising through the Montana House last week (third reading Thursday) the increasingly infamous HB 309 has been assigned to the MT Senate Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation committee. For those interested in watching the wheels of government spin (I’m intentionally leaving that alone for now), here’s a link to the committee’s web page listing […]
Yep, it stinks. HB 309 has cleared the house with the third reading today. The measure even picked up a few votes along the way. <sarcasm> Impressive <\sarcasm>. The issue is far from resolved though frankly I’m encouraged after getting back in the office and chatting (email) with some folks today. By the way, if […]
If you’re following the issue, you’ve probably heard by now that the assault on Montana’s historically generous stream and river access regs took a step forward yesterday. The bill passed on second reading 55-44 (largely along party lines); the third reading is scheduled for today’s session. This link will take you to today’s house agenda […]
HB 309 is on the Montana House Agenda for this afternoon……. You can see the vote outcome on the house agenda record (link here) seen above. Calls and emails still needed this morning, contact info at the bottom of this post.
We’re fishing around this morning trying to find out when Rep. Jeff Wellborn’s miscreant of a bill (HB 309) is going to the floor for a vote. No luck so far this morning (as of 1020); it’s once again not on the schedule for the house and we have several emails out looking for new […]
