What are the Perks of a Montana Ranch?

The plains, mountains, and forests are all present on Montana hunting ranches for sale. Whether you are interested in hunting, fishing, camping, farming, managing livestock, or just relaxing, the varied landscapes and breadth of wildlife species will have much to offer. No matter the season, the environment is also stunning, and there is always something exciting going on. The warmer seasons are great for kayaking, camping, and hiking, and the winter season brings with it a host of new activities like skiing, snowboarding, snowmobiling, and ice fishing. There is simply nothing like a Montana retreat.

Diverse Wildlife

Montana is home to a pretty diverse batch of larger animals. To name just a few, you can find grizzly bears, pronghorn antelopes, swift foxes, mule deer, coyotes, bobcats, mountain goats, wolverines, and even Canadian lynxes. The smaller animals tend to inhabit the brush, forest, or prairie regions. You can often find multiple species of hare, porcupine, and squirrel, and also some long-tailed weasels, pygmy rabbits, and chipmunks.

There are plenty of birds too—some of the smaller species tend to make a home in the sagebrush like grouse, sandpipers, sparrows, shrike, thrashers, and meadowlarks. But you can also find larger birds like sandhill cranes, owls, falcons, hawks, and even bald eagles.

The state has a rich collection of fish in its rivers and lakes as well, including burbot, whitefish, rocky mountain sculpin, pearl dace, mountain sucker, stonechat, and trout—and in the warmer waters of the plain rivers, paddlefish, blue suckers, pallid sturgeons, and goldeyes can be found.

Environment

Montana’s iconic dusty plains are covered by needle-and-thread, bluestem, blue grama, and bluebunch wheatgrass, with an occasional burst of color from rabbitbrush, snowberries, dotted blazing stars, and prairie coneflower. Naturally, the plains are not a heavily wooded region, but ponderosa pine and green ash sprout up occasionally.

The scenery of the foggy mountain-forest region is especially breathtaking. Rolling hills are timbered by Douglas-fir, lodgepole pine, and aspen, and wildflowers abound beneath the canopy. The wood’s rose is a vibrant purple, the creeping-Oregon-grape a bright yellow, the thimbleberry a pure white. You simply cannot miss them—their fiery colors pierce through the green-brown woodland foliage even in the fog.

Recreation

A ranch property in Montana provides you with a seemingly endless number of activities. You can go boating in some of the most beautiful lakes in the nation, kayaking down broad rivers and between narrow canyons, or horseback riding and hiking across the dusty plains, lush woodland trails, and expansive foothills. There are shooting ranges that offer all manner of firearms to use for target practice and trap shooting, and there is even an active “geocaching” community for outdoorsman interested in this trending large-scale game of hide-and-seek.

For hunters, there is, of course, no shortage of big and small game. That includes bison, black bear, deer, furbearer, wild turkey, antelope, elk, and even mountain lion hunting, season permitting. There is also plenty of waterfowl and upland game birds available to hunt or trap. And the same goes for fishers—Montana rivers are filled with plenty of species to reel in—enough to satisfy even the most prolific fishers. This and so much more make a Montana ranch an incredible retreat!