Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and volunteers from three organizations completed bridge access projects on the Stillwater River and East Rosebud River this week.

Montana’s courts and legislature have ruled that the public may access rivers and streams, between the high-water marks, from public rights of way where bridges cross the water. In many instances, local ranchers or county road departments have attached fences to the bridge abutments to give livestock access to the water, but to keep them confined to an adjacent pasture. Those fences often make public access to the stream difficult, dangerous or impossible. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks was given the task of ensuring that sportsmen have reasonable access to rivers from bridge rights of way.

The Billings Rod & Gun Club and Magic City Flyfishers donated money for some of the materials. Members of those organizations and the local 4H club helped build improvements this week.

The first project completed this week was at Spring Creek Bridge across the Stillwater River six miles upstream from Absarokee. On two corners of the bridge, access was blocked by barbed wire or woven wire fences and steep, slick, rocky, hazardous embankments.

The second project was at a bridge across the East Rosebud River south of Roscoe. There, FWP employees and a volunteer from the Billings Rod & Gun Club installed steel gates in two fences that are attached to the bridge abutments and that hindered access to the river from the road right of way.

During the coming months, FWP will continue to inspect bridges in south central Montana for access impediments and schedule similar projects to ensure that sportsmen have reasonable access.