Hunting Land in Slope County, North Dakota

Slope County's badlands terrain and its share of the Little Missouri National Grassland make it genuine big-game country -- but the licenses, land status, and access rules that actually govern hunting here are specific and worth understanding before you buy for personal use or hunting-lease income.

This page covers what's specific to Slope County. For the general explanation, see the national guide.

What you can actually hunt here, and why the licenses are more restrictive than they look

The Little Missouri National Grassland's badlands terrain in and around Slope County supports mule deer, white-tailed deer, elk, pronghorn antelope, bighorn sheep, sharp-tailed grouse, and greater prairie chickens, and the North Dakota Game and Fish Department treats this stretch of the southwestern badlands as some of the state's premier mule deer habitat. That abundance comes with a catch for anyone thinking a general deer tag guarantees a mule deer buck: North Dakota's unlimited regular-season 'any deer' licenses are explicitly not valid for antlered mule deer in the western badlands units, including the ones covering this part of the state. An antlered mule deer requires a separate restricted license awarded through the state's lottery draw, meaning access to the marquee species here is licensing-limited even where the habitat itself is excellent.

Bighorn sheep and moose add another layer worth knowing if wildlife value factors into your purchase decision. Bighorn sheep licenses are awarded through a statewide lottery that applicants enter alongside elk and moose applications (typically due in late March), but unlike deer, applicants don't choose a specific unit up front -- the total number of bighorn licenses per unit is set after summer population surveys, the lottery itself runs around September 1, and only successful applicants then select their hunting unit. Moose licenses work through a similar unit-based lottery, and Slope County falls within Moose Unit M6 alongside neighboring Bowman County. None of these are licenses a landowner can simply guarantee to a hunting-lease client -- they depend on a statewide draw system outside any individual landowner's control, which matters if you're evaluating a parcel partly on assumed hunting-lease income.

Access here is genuinely mixed: open-unless-posted law meets a checkerboard of federal, grazing-association, and private land

North Dakota's baseline rule is that private land is open to hunting unless the landowner has posted it -- but a 2023 state law (Senate Bill 2144) made North Dakota the first state to let landowners post electronically through the Game and Fish Department's own database (gf.nd.gov/electronic-posting) instead of, or in addition to, physical signage. By 2024, roughly 12 million acres statewide had been posted this way, and just under 60% of those landowners chose to include contact information for hunters seeking permission. Anyone entering unposted private land still needs a valid hunting license, and a buyer who wants a Slope County parcel kept off-limits to public hunting should not assume old-fashioned signage is the only option -- registering the parcel in the state's electronic system is now a real, additional step worth taking, and worth confirming was actually done if you're buying land that a seller claims is already posted.

What makes Slope County distinct is how much of the county's huntable land isn't simple private ranch ground at all. A meaningful share of the county sits within the Little Missouri National Grassland's boundary, where U.S. Forest Service surface land, real pockets of state school-trust land, and private inholdings sit side by side, with grazing on much of it -- federal and non-federal alike -- administered through the Little Missouri Grazing Association's federal allotments rather than by individual ranch owners alone. Public access along the Little Missouri River corridor within the grassland is genuinely extensive, but the terrain is rough, and a specific tract's actual status (deeded private land you can post or lease exclusively, versus a grazing-association permit area on federal surface where public hunting access already applies regardless of the permittee) makes a real difference to what you're actually buying. Before assuming a parcel carries exclusive hunting rights or reliable lease income, confirm its deeded-versus-federal-surface status with the county recorder and the Forest Service's Dakota Prairie Grasslands office, check its current electronic and physical posting status with North Dakota Game and Fish, and verify which restricted-license units and lottery programs actually apply to that specific location rather than relying on general badlands reputation.

Hunting Land in Slope County, North Dakota

What you can actually hunt here, and why the licenses are more restrictive than they look

Access here is genuinely mixed: open-unless-posted law meets a checkerboard of federal, grazing-association, and private land

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