The Iowa Department of Natural Resources is offering several new options for fishing and hunting licenses in 2013. D-N-R Chief of Fisheries, Joe Larschied, says the new options were developed based on feedback from Iowans. “A lot of anglers came to us and said ‘you know we’d like to pay for the privilege to fish with three poles,’ especially bank anglers and ice anglers and things like that. So we’re offering that for the first time,” Larschied says. “The other things we’re offering are a three-year angling license, so you can lock current prices for three years…you gain some savings with administrative fees for each of those three years.”

There’s also what he calls the hunter’s special. “A three-year hunting license with the habitat stamp included, so again you can lock in the current years prices for three years. And then the other option is an outdoor combo license which combines the annual resident hunting, fishing and habitat combo for one year,” Larschied says. He says there’s a cost savings on the fees, but is mostly a convenience feature. Larschied says people who hunt and fish wanted to see the option tailored more like other licenses. He says you get a driver’s license and boat registration for several years and that’s why they decided to do the same for hunters and anglers.

Larschied says the program is self-supporting and hopefully making things more convenient will get more people involved. “The trust fund where all the license dollars goes is what allows us to hire game wardens, to hire the people to run the hatcheries and stock fish, and it is solely run on fishing and hunting license revenue,” Larschied says. “And so this just allows people to lock in for three years their commitment to shore up their trust fund, which is what we’re really trying to do.”

The cost of a bonus line fishing license is 12-dollars. The cost for an outdoor combo license is 47-dollars, a three-year fishing license 53-dollars, three-year hunting license 86-dollars. You can now purchase those new licenses and use them through the rest of this year up to their expiration date.

(Radio Iowa)