Montana Free Conservation and Fishing License After a Contingency Deployment

Section 87-2-817(2) is one of the better-drafted small benefits in this catalog, and it is worth reading closely because the trigger is narrower than it sounds and the duration is longer. A Montana resident who is a member of the Montana National Guard or the federal reserve under 10 U.S.C. 10101, or who was otherwise engaged in active duty, and who participated in a contingency operation as defined in 10 U.S.C. 101(a)(13) that required them to serve at least two months outside Montana, must be issued a free resident conservation licence and either a Class A resident fishing licence or a Class AAA resident combination sports licence. The combination licence may not include a Class A-6 black bear tag. Free does not mean free of everything. The member still pays the resident base hunting licence fee under 87-2-116 and still buys the resident aquatic invasive species prevention pass under 87-2-130. Those are small amounts, but a member who turns up expecting to pay nothing will be asked for them. The entitlement period is five license years: the year the member returns from service or the year following, at the member's election, and any of the four years after that election. Subsection (2)(b) then adds the part nobody expects. If the member is later required to serve another two months or more outside the state on the same qualifying basis, the entitlement resets and a new five-year period starts, at the member's election, in the year of return or the year after. There is no limit on the number of resets. A Guard member with a long career of repeated deployments can hold this continuously. The documentation is specific: the written application and proof of residency under 87-2-202(1), plus the DD Form 214 verifying release or discharge from active duty, delivered to a regional department office or to headquarters in Helena by mail or in person. And the applicant carries the burden of showing that they participated in a contingency operation. That is the part to prepare, because a DD-214 does not always say so on its face. Two months outside Montana is the test. Length of federal service, a rating and a discharge character are all irrelevant here.