An advisory council created by Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks to provide guidance on river recreation has come up with a rough outline for the agency. The group met over three days in mid-October to offer a variety of ideas about how to deal with the state’s increasingly more crowded rivers and fishing access sites. They will finalize their recommendations in a Nov. 6 meeting that will be broadcast online if anyone wants to tune in. Public comment will be taken at the end of the meeting. The goal is to create a type of decision tree for FWP when problems arise. The idea is to initially avoid heavy-handed restrictions and emphasize education. Any proposals are also not to impact communities, their culture or commercial businesses. So it’s a difficult task to meet these many sideboards and still have a program that’s effective. To learn more, check out my story at https://billingsgazette.com/outdoors/montana-river-recreation-advisory-council-fish-wildlife-and-parks/article_19d6908a-92e4-11ef-8d23-e3e29eb544de.html.

Written by Brett French | Outdoors Editor for Billings Gazette Communications