Although the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) owned some of the shoreline, these federal agencies were not very responsive to local demands for access.

[38] Recreational use of the Smith River rose significantly throughout the 1970s, worsening conflicts between private landowners and floaters over access, cross-stream fencing,[h] human waste disposal, litter, trespassing, and vandalism.

[52] The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP; DFG underwent a name change in 1979)[53] began more intensive management of the Smith River in 1980.

[62] In 1983, FWP issued a contract for a concession for a shuttle service to run from Great Falls to Eden Bridge to Camp Baker, which allowed floaters to retrieve their vehicles at the put-in point or return to the nearby city.

[65][66] In 1984, DFG formed the "Concerned Citizens of the Smith River Canyon", ad hoc group consisting of local landowners, outfitters, members of the public, and a representative from USFS.

In reaction, local landowner Louise Rankin Galt closed the popular Indian Springs boat camp after concluding that floaters would begin to treat her property as public land.

[8] The Ad Hoc Committee had identified the need for a usage study in 1985, and the FWP contracted with consultant Joel Shouse of Bozeman, Montana, to do the work.

The data indicated a clear (if arbitrary, and highly contextual) cut-off point of 100 floaters per day as the maximum "carrying capacity" of the Smith River.

[72] Although other factors, such as boat camp availability, put-in wait times, private landowner complaints, and environmental damage were considered, none of these correlated with high floater numbers.

To this end, the commission was specifically empowered to allocate use among recreational and commercial users, adopt a usage permitting system, and to regulate both water and land use in the Smith River watershed to achieve the purposes of the act.

Most importantly, the legislation authorized the Fish and Game Commission to establish and collect fees for various types of use of the Smith River Recreational Waterway.

[8][89][o] By issuing permits only at Camp Baker, this system effectively limited the number of floaters to only those groups prepared to spend four days on the river.

[91] Income generated by user fees allowed FWP to hire a second river ranger to patrol the Smith, enforcing regulations, mediating conflict with landowners, maintaining boat camps, and picking up floater logs at Eden Bridge.

FWP took advantage of the low number of users to add electricity and running water to the Camp Baker and Eden Bridge campsites.

USFS agreed to continue to allow boat camps to be maintained on its property, and pledged to give special consideration to the river in its planning.

[102] The subsequent Annual Operating Plan provided for FWP to reimburse USFS for certain costs associated with Smith River management, signage, supplies, and other things.

[103] Although the number of users in 1992 was an extremely low 782,[85] the trend toward increasing use of the Smith River led FWP to implement Stage 5 of its management plan in 1993.

[122] The biennial rule required FWP to refer any proposals to the Ad-Hoc Committee, and to prepare annually a list of all private land adjacent to the recreational waterway.

[109] In 2005, the Montana state legislature enacted House Bill 312,[125] which limited the ways FWP could spend user fees collected on the Smith River.

[128][129][w] The CAC held 12 meetings over the next year while FWP staff conducted research, studied recreation and outfitter surveys and floater logs, and interviewed experts.

[135] A new indicator, a Likert scale asking floaters "to rate their level of satisfaction with the number of other boats they observed on the river", was also established to help identify "solitude".

[139][ab] To improve conditions of "solitude" on the Smith River, the 2009 rule also required FWP to undertake a more rational approach to the boat camps.

Pursuant to a request by FWP in 2002, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) studied the level of fecal coliform in the Smith River.

[152] As FWP began its biennial rulemaking for all state parks in late 2012, it considered requiring Smith River users to use bear-proof food storage methods.

However, in 2012, FWP approved bank stabilization, channel maintenance, and fencing in two places on the Smith River to help restore and improve areas were erosion threatened the fishery.

[158][166] Environmentalists and sportsmen strongly opposed the mine, and Tintina amended its application several times between 2012 and 2017 to supply missing information or meet state requests for more data.

[167] In 2010, FWP began a cooperative effort with Montana State University to begin assessing the true size of the Smith River fishery.

The research also identified tributaries where certain fish species tended to wander, suggesting that FWP work to target these streams for more intensive protection and management.

[174][147] The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks runs a lottery every late winter in which permits are awarded on a random basis to applicants.

It consists of a 51-acre (0.21 km2)[172] facility containing a three-bedroom, seasonally-occupied house for staff, a two-room ranger station, a two-story storage/maintenance building, an informational kiosk, two vault toilets, a parking lot for about 50 vehicles, boat launch ramps, and a camping area with picnic tables and fire grates.