Smith River outfitters oppose FWP's proposed rule change (2024)

Smith River outfitters on Tuesday stood against a proposed rule change regarding how commercial launch days are reallocated after an outfitter leaves the business.

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks' proposal would reallocate those launch days to other outfitters by lottery. The proposal identifies a handful of reasons an outfitter may lose their permitted launch days, including revocation by the department and death of the permit holder.

Another scenario identified by the department could be the permit holder's sale or transfer of the permitted business to a buyer who is ineligible to receive their own commercial use permit.

On Tuesday, FWP's State Parks and Recreation Board initiated what will be a multi-phase process to potentially create a lottery for the department to transfer those permitted launch days after any of those scenarios.

While FWP maintained on Tuesday the timing was unrelated, the department is currently in litigation over precisely that eligibility scenario.

Mike Geary, a longtime outfitter on the Smith River through his Healing Waters Lodge, sued FWP earlier this year after the agency rejected a transfer of his permitted launch days to the incoming buyers of his business. The department determined, after looking at the sale documents, that the buyers were not licensed outfitters, and therefore planned to void his launch days.

Geary contended the business agreement allowed him to continue acting as the outfitter until the new buyers obtain their outfitter license in three years, and that FWP's action would have sunk his clients' trips already booked this year.

The state agency was so rigid in its position that Lt. Gov. Kristen Juras attended one meeting between the parties in which, according to Geary, the state was uninterested in negotiating a compromise. At the time, FWP planned to redistribute Geary's launch days by lottery.

In April, a district court judge blocked FWP from voiding Geary's launch days on the Smith this year, although the case remains ongoing.

At Tuesday's hearing, FWP attorney Jeff Hindoien said, the proposed rule change would have no bearing or impact on Geary's court case against the department.

"All this does is propose a mechanism for what would happen in the event launches were to ever end up back in the hands of the department by virtue of being decoupled from a commercial use permit," he said.

Board members Jody Loomis and John Marancik still expressed some hesitation about proceeding in parallel with a lawsuit over the matter. Loomis also noted these months in particular could be hard to get input from the involved outfitters.

"It affects them more than anybody at a time when they're all out on the river, they're right in the middle of their season," he said.

Outfitters testified in varying degrees against the department's proposal regarding the reasons why permits would be reallocated. The Fishing Outfitters Association of Montana joined others in arguing that portion of the proposal should be tabled.

"If this doesn't have anything to do with the lawsuit, I don't understand why this allocation is of concern today," John Herzer, an outfitter with two launch days on the Smith River, testified.

Bozeman outfitter Brian McGeehan said existing regulations already allow for the reallocation of those permits, such as allowing a family member to designate an eligible successor in the event that a permit holder dies. Hindoien earlier said those state laws cited by the opponents deal in outfitter licensing, not commercial use permits.

McGeehan also opposed the department's proposal that mirrored Geary's situation.

"We again have statute that protects the right of outfitters to sell businesses," he said. "I'm just really troubled by that."

Geary himself appeared during the hearing to offer his own opposition.

"I would like this to be tabled," he said.

The board voted 4-0 to advance the process, setting up a public comment period that will last more than a month and two hearings available for public comment. Those dates were not immediately set on Tuesday.