Passport to Texas

This is Passport to Texas

For years, whether you hunted or fished, no matter when you bought your license, it expired August 31st.

03— The primary reasoning for that is driven by hunting seasons.

That’s Tom Newton who oversees licensing at Parks and Wildlife. Dove season opens the first weekend of September, followed by a succession of other seasons. By mid-spring most hunters have full freezers and won’t go out again until fall.

Anglers aren’t limited by set seasons. Yet, if an angler buys a license in July, for example, they still have to pay full price even though it will expire in a month’s time.

But that’s changing.

42— We’re looking at the possibility and the fiscal feasibility of converting to an annual basis for all the fishing licenses, because that’s a different situation than the set hunting seasons. There are no real seasons for fishing that would interfere with annual licenses; there are no tagging activities – other than the red drum tag – so we’re looking at that. We have one fishing license that’s now annual that’s called the year from purchase all water fishing license. People really like it and they’re buying it at a brisk pace. So, probably within the next few years we’re going to go to an annual year from purchase on all of the various fishing licenses. Hunting licenses have to remain on the current schedule because of the tagging. The super combos and the combos will probably stay as they are because they have hunting licenses included within them.

The Wildlife and sport Fish Restoration program supports our series and provides funding for private lands and public hunting programs in Texas.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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