Uptick in target shooting prompts concerns for campers

The high-powered rifle shot was as startling as a thunderclap, with the piercing crack followed by an echo that raced through the treetops. 

“If they shoot this way, we’re in jeopardy,” said John Metrione, a recreation and trails resource specialist with Helena-Lewis and Clark National forest.

In the canyon along Dry Fork of Belt Creek, it was impossible to pinpoint the source, but the shooting was close enough to prompt a flinch.

The popularity of target shooting with high-power rifles — with trees often the targets — along Dry Fork of Belt Creek in Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest is a growing concern for Metrione.

Not because it’s illegal. It isn’t.

It’s worrisome because the uptick in shooting is occurring in a 10-mile-long canyon where dozens of camp sites are dispersed in the forest.

In Colorado’s Pike National Forest last July, Glenn Martin, a 60-year-old man enjoying a holiday with his family, was killed by an errant shot.

“That’s my biggest fear,” said Beth Ihle, a deputy district ranger with the forest.

This Memorial Day weekend, depending on the weather, the dozens of camp sites with fire rings along Dry Fork of Belt Creek, some hidden in the trees, will be busy with campers, many of them from Great Falls.

“You see all these trees here?” Metrione said at one area of camp sites. “They’ve all been shot.”

Ihle and Metrione visited camp sites along the road Friday.

The idyllic sites, located off of Forest Road 120, also known as the Hughesville Road, near Monarch, are nestled among Ponderosa pines with views of canyon cliffs with some camps located adjacent to the creek and the sounds of rushing water.

“They’re actually sawing them in half with high-powered rifles,” Metrione said of target shooters and trees. “I think that’s part of the attraction.”

Ihle picked up shell casings littering the ground and placed them in a bucket.

“This is the stuff of modern-day land management,” she said.

Some of the trees being used as targets had fallen over.

Target practice and sighting in guns has always occurred in the area, and shooting in the national forest is legal. Target shooters can bring their own targets. They remove them along with the shell casings when they leave. At least that’s what a sign advises them to do.

Five or six years ago, the shooting picked up considerably, with multiple rounds being fired at the trees, which is prompting complaints from the public and Forest Service’s concern.

“We just want people to recognize that’s not an appropriate use of a firearm to use trees as targets,” Metrione said.

Exploding targets — targets that explode when they are struck by a bullet — are now being used in some instances as well. Use of those types of targets are illegal on national forest lands.

And the uptick in target shooting is occurring at a time when camping also is increasing in the area.

“Consider we need to keep the trees in the campground for the next camper,” Ihle said.

The Forest Service is not suggesting that shooting can’t occur along the Dry Fork of Belt Creek, Metrione said.

Just that recreational shooters remember that the area is a high-use camping area with families including children spending nights there, and that firearms cannot be discharged within 150 yards of a camp site.

“Our No. 1 concern is public safety,” Metrione said.

It’s difficult to see who is camped in the forested areas in the canyon because sight is limited by the trees and the curve of the road, Metrione said. That makes discharging firearms potentially dangerous, he said.

He pointed out a tree that obviously had been used as a target, and then an open area located some distance behind it.

“People camp up there,” he said.

Some campers have lodged complaints with the Forest Service about constant shooting, Metrione said.

When shots from the high-powered rifle echoed through the canyon, Ihle and Metrione drove down the road to find the source.

“I like coming out here to recreational shoot,” said Taylor Steinbarth, who was shooting with a friend.

They were using exploding targets, which Steinbarth said he didn’t know was against the rules.

“I’ll definitely pass it on,” he said of the information.

Steinbarth and his friend brought their own targets to the forest, and they set them up so they were shooting into a hillside.

“Even though they did a few things wrong, I really think they did a lot of things right,” Metrione said.

Follow Karl Puckett on Twitter @GFTrib_KPuckett.

Shooting regulations

It’s illegal to shoot within 150 yards of a residence, a building, or campsite or developed recreation site, according to forest rules. It’s also illegal to discharge a firearm across a road or a body of water. Exploding targets are illegal in national forest lands. Target shooters are encouraged to bring their own targets rather than shooting the trees.