DNR Considering Raising Fishing and Hunting License

They're meeting Jan 17th to consider raising it up to $22, so only a $5 increase. Which doesn't bother me because I know that money goes straight back into the lakes and streams. However, what caught my attention, and irked me a bit, was there justification for the increase. Per their agenda (link), agenda item 7 (link), it says "Furthermore, Indiana's license fees are substantially less than Kentucky, Michigan, and Ohio, so this change brings Indiana into a consistent market value with neighboring states". I don't know about you guys, but in my opinion Kentucky and Michigan have superior fishing to Indiana (never fished in Ohio) so those fees are justified. So what do you think? Could the increase in funds provide Indiana with better waters to fish?

IN is so far behind other states around us, it's not even close. I haven't seen anything put into the fisheries in the areas I frequent since I moved to IN 10 years ago. I still pay the non resident fee and fish KY quite a bit and feel I get my moneys worth. IN has let good lakes be ruined around me that I doubt will ever come back.

I beat Indiana dnr out of their money when they first offered lifetime hunting licenses at 200 bucks and now don't even offer them and also have a lifetime fishing license also. I wouldn't complain if dnr were to actually show us the benefits of a increase and quit playing politics and do their jobs like they used to. Heck, all the launches, state parks, and facilities are falling apart and in disrepare.

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Originally Posted by cevans

I beat Indiana dnr out of their money when they first offered lifetime hunting licenses at 200 bucks and now don't even offer them and also have a lifetime fishing license also. I wouldn't complain if dnr were to actually show us the benefits of a increase and quit playing politics and do their jobs like they used to. Heck, all the launches, state parks, and facilities are falling apart and in disrepare.

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All true statements

My wife and I fish many weekends in Indiana, we catch very little. The State Park fishing areas are a shambles and in early summer they do a weed kill and you can look below the docks and see all the dead fish.
We love to fish but have no luck until we make our twice a year trips to KY Lake. Sure wish Indiana would step it up. I also notice that as soon as you leave Indiana the highways are better, I'm all for the budget surplus but let's take care of the people paying.

When I was fishing up there on a regular basis, the lakes I fished received little attention from the state. I fished Elk Creek and Ferdinand State Forest routinely, those places got no attention or money.

I personally just don't think they would put the extra dollars to good use. Is there even a trophy fishery up there outside of bass fishing at Patoka?? Crappie are good at Hardy, redear are decent at Hardy, Elk Creek, Ferdinand and used to be good at Indian and Celina.

I always wanted to see Indiana build a big lake and manage it for trophy fishing. Look at the Mississippi crappie lakes, the TVA lakes in Tennessee and the awesome lakes in Kentucky, now that's fishing.

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Originally Posted by redearhoosier

When I was fishing up there on a regular basis, the lakes I fished received little attention from the state. I fished Elk Creek and Ferdinand State Forest routinely, those places got no attention or money.

I personally just don't think they would put the extra dollars to good use. Is there even a trophy fishery up there outside of bass fishing at Patoka?? Crappie are good at Hardy, redear are decent at Hardy, Elk Creek, Ferdinand and used to be good at Indian and Celina.

I always wanted to see Indiana build a big lake and manage it for trophy fishing. Look at the Mississippi crappie lakes, the TVA lakes in Tennessee and the awesome lakes in Kentucky, now that's fishing.

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Nope.......Hardy has been ruined as well

Really?? What in the world happened? You were the man at Hardy!

Many different variables that all could have been avoided for one of the best crappie lakes in this part of the state. I can still catch fish there, but I'd have to weed through 20 yellow bass to every crappie. It's sad..

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Indiana's last big lake project was defeated in the early 80's. the building of several locks and dams on the wabash all the way past Lafayette. It got all the way to the Federal level and when the money was being appropriated, the farmers and libs beat it into defeat. Dick Lugar was our Senator then and I had worked 4 yrs with him building that up. We thought we had it done too. No big lakes since or ever will be in this state built unless some municipality needs water is what I am thinking and then it won't ever be a biggie due to the opposition.

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Originally Posted by Locator79

Many different variables that all could have been avoided for one of the best crappie lakes in this part of the state. I can still catch fish there, but I'd have to weed through 20 yellow bass to every crappie. It's sad..

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And DNR thinks a size limit on crappie might bring it back:juggle

They need to write some checks out with the people we have running it now


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Originally Posted by funfishers

My wife and I fish many weekends in Indiana, we catch very little. The State Park fishing areas are a shambles and in early summer they do a weed kill and you can look below the docks and see all the dead fish.
We love to fish but have no luck until we make our twice a year trips to KY Lake. Sure wish Indiana would step it up. I also notice that as soon as you leave Indiana the highways are better, I'm all for the budget surplus but let's take care of the people paying.

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Does dnr's budget come only from license fees and associated charges or do they get money from the general fund? I know kdfw is only funded through fees and taxes on lures ammo etc. They do an outstanding job. Maybe a little too much red tape in Hoosier land if the state determines the dnr's budget.

All moneys collected I,think goes into general fund of the state. Then Dnr generates a budget and goes before State legislature to get it approved and funds appropriated. So it's all political. Certain small funds are ear collected and ear marked for certain programs, but that isn't much. State Legislature controls the purse strings however.

They are spending a ton of the funds clearing forests of hardwoods and making campgrounds more horse friendly. Makes perfect sense, wish I could donate a little more. Oh wait....that's coming.

I'm amazed at the difference in Ky and In. Living down.here at Lake Barkley, I'm telling you, the difference is night and day. It's little things like having garbage cans available at ramps, having a restroom available at ramps. Of course the fishing ain't bad down here either:)

I fished Southern Indiana lakes for years. Some of them were actually decent but certainly weren't managed for trophy fish. Patoka is managed for big bass I believe, so they got that going. They let Glendale go downhill, that's a shame.

Zero issues with an increase if we start seeing some real fishery management. The increase might go to add a few more CO's which would be nice considering the amount of people taking more than their legal limits on a lot of public waters. It would also be nice to see more stocking of some waters with walleye and crappie.

Even if they get a few new CO's, those CO's are constantly on 24 hr call as all police agencies use One every time they do a drug bust. The C O's any more are spending more time doing that as they,can enter houses and any property without a search warrant with the police powers they have. Talk about spread thin.

Moved to Georgia three years ago, and very glad for it. Your fishing license is $18 for TWO years. And the fishing, it's great! I still have a lot to learn, but catching a 12 to 14" crappie is something you do about every trip out. Never thought IN did near enough to help the anglers.

You guys are really bumming me out about the Indiana fishing, But Michigan is not much better, and their licenses money, they are more worried about the salmon than any thing.

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Fish & Wildlife > About Us > Funding for Fish & Wildlife Funding for Fish & Wildlife

The Division of Fish & Wildlife sells hunting, fishing, and trapping licenses. All revenue is used for managing fish and wildlife resources in Indiana. No license money goes into the state general fund.

• The DFW also receives money through the Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration Programs administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Indiana receives approximately $10 for every person who purchases a fishing license and $42 for every person who purchases a hunting license. Indiana received $16.5 million in federal apportionment in 2016. This money is used to manage fish and wildlife resources in Indiana. So, even if you don’t hunt or fish, you can buy a combination license at $25/year and Indiana will receive an additional $52 in federal funds to be used for fish and wildlife conservation.

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Originally Posted by flytier

You guys are really bumming me out about the Indiana fishing, But Michigan is not much better, and their licenses money, they are more worried about the salmon than any thing.

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You missed the best fishing ever in Lake Michigan as well as Huron, St. Clair For salmon fishing in the 70's and early 80's. I filled the boat with all 5 species of salmon, held the brown trout record of 20.5 lbs for a half year, and,it was nothing to catch Kings up to 35 lbs one after another. I still have a few pics of old days that will never be the same. I even gave up bow hunting as I chased salmon and walleye on Erie every weekend. Michigan found out the Great Lakes couldn't sustain the numbers of salmon they were hatchery producing and had to cut it all to pieces as well as loosing a few years of brood stock to disease in their hatcheries wiping years of fish stockings. It was tremendous fishing while it lasted.

Been sitting here thinking how fishing has changed in my life time of 67 yrs. and it's all now about fish management by every state and government due to the tremendous fishing pressure we all put on the fisheries. Years ago, I would bass fish a strip pit and in the spring, hitting them just at the right time, we'd catch nothing but stringers of 3-4-5 up to 8lb bass over and over and the limit then was 12 per person and we had all those strip pits to our selves as there wasn't any fishing pressure, but we didn't realize how long it took those fish to grow or reproduce by keeping the fat females and eating all we caught as we never considered any large enough to mount always thinking our next fish would be larger. Every year in the 70's and 80's we take fly in trips all over Canada flying into small lakes that were maybe 1/2 mile wide and 10-15 miles long and if the outfitter flew several groups of 4-6 fishermen every 5 days from last week of May thru their late summer of August, we fished those lakes completely out to where the outfitter after 5-7 years moved to a new lake to keep doing his business. Back then you could keep 12 of each species not to mention we were eating fish 3 meals a day per person. No body ever thought or knew how long it would take a lake trout to reach a size of 20 or 30 lbs back then. Canada had to learn to manage their resources due to fishing pressure and short growing season. Inventions-- I remember when the first flasher fish finder came on the market. States like Minn. and Wis. and Mich. considered and even did in some cases outlawed the use of them for a short time giving in to pressure from the public to use them. TV, Sports and Fishing Shows, Bait shops, magazines and books educated the masses. Rods, reels, baits all improved with technology. Look how much money we spend just on the rigging of our boats. First it was, we traveled and found our way with paper maps and compasses, then Loran C's, now GPS and map software. Fish finders from flasher graphs then paper graphs, now video and 3-d. And to top it all off, we now have forums to learn by. You have forums for every specie of fish to teach a person how to fish. And......what about the fish? What has he had to learn from,,, in order to survive?

I know we all give our DNR's a pretty hard time and we all want to have better fishing. Some of us are even willing to agree to pay a little more if we think it will help. The battle line is, the masses keep growing in numbers and thus so does the fishing pressure, but does the growth of our DNR's or can they even grow and keep up with the demand from the masses and our use of all our technology and improved fishing equipment as well as what we have all learned?

I'm not going to complain about the money. That's my choice to burn it. My main problem about Indiana,which where I live, is the waste of opportunity to spend it wisely. Here in southern Indiana there's more fisherman than water. Bluegrass is a prime example the state could've bought the whole area but elected only to buy half. Maybe if we were closer to Indianapolis they would've bought the whole area.

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Originally Posted by flytier

You guys are really bumming me out about the Indiana fishing, But Michigan is not much better, and their licenses money, they are more worried about the salmon than any thing.

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I'm bummed out also, Indiana is my home and I don't have enough years left in my life to see a significant improvement.
I guess we should all call or contact our state senate and house.

You just have to become a smarter fisherman and spend more time fishing and expect a little less in the catch. And enjoy the moments of being outdoors relaxing and enjoying the moments. :)

paying more wont help the hunting or fishing one bit. its a management and mismanagement issue. the deer herd being one shinning example!

they made a huge mistake, in the initial large jump in license fees several years back, and it gutted their wallet a bit. they been trying to catch up ever since.

even though they had to have had a huge take from all the lifetime licenses that year, we didnt see any improvements for sportsmen. no reason to think it would be any different with this.

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Originally Posted by river scum

its a management and mismanagement issue. the deer herd being one shinning example!

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I will agree with you on everything but the deer herd. Indiana is becoming a destination for trophy whitetail. There have been more scoreable bucks killed in Indiana in the last 5 years than in the last 50. What resources DNR is putting back in the field is about 80% hunting related and 10% fishing and 10% upgrading facilities. I have long said Indiana is so far behind other states when it comes to our fisheries that we will have nothing to catch before they ever attempt to actually properly manage our fisheries. Then they will stand back and ask what happened.

and your assuming everyone wants "trophy hunting". thats far from the case. look around on the net and see hordes of indiana hunters complaining(even in 8doe counties!). its just a few that only want to shoot horns, most hunt for meat. horns are only good for decorations, crafts and and egos. i only heard 6 shots, including mine, on opening day this year. everyone else in the area saying the same thing. then i only seen 4 deer the rest of the season. sounds like bad management to me.

Indiana is not protecting its deer herd by any means. Here in Martin Co we used to have 30 deer per sq. Mile ave. They were always large in size, never diseased or starved due to lack of food. We always chased big racks. Too many doe tags have lowered it to 5 deer per sq. mile. Check in on line system has increased poaching and lots of locals don't even bother to check them in with the 48 hrs given time now to check in. DNR is not making the efforts anymore to set up at nite to tackle the poaching around here even tho we now have one more officer and they are better equipped. One DNR officer, during hunting season now sits in Rural King's parking lot and as he see's hunters carrying out deer feed bags of corn and cocane, runs their license plates and then goes and checks the area they hunt to see if they are baiting deer. The easy ticket write up on the dummies. Too many bobcats. I have one that I bet weighs 60 lbs and now seeing bone piles here and there from them taking down the fawns and wild turkeys. I have way too many bobcats running my property and have busted a couple with 6 shot to get them de-humanized to protect my house pets. Even tho I have my local DNR's phone numbers, they never answer a call on issues so I give up trying to help them up. And everybody thinks it's getting better? Hunting is just like fishing. You have experienced the good old days as it's over with.

oh now, i wouldnt say its over. they just need to cut back the doe "quotas". we have the lowest harvest numbers since 03 they say. the herd would bounce back in a couple years if we stop shooting the baby makers.

you didnt see any deer in the 60s, then look what happened! there is always hope! but not without change.

I didn't assume anything, I just stated some consensual facts. I'm sorry that the deer herd is hurting in front of your guys areas. Here in Harrison county you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a damn deer, they are practically a nuisance animal. I live out in the country with fields all around me, but the way my land and adjoining land lays it was not conducive for deer to come thru my place because of the openness. We have lived here for going on 20 years and was not until 3-4 we started seeing any. Now we have anywhere from 4-11 come thru every night. I never had to worry about my garden, but I guess those days are over.

As for bobcats, you very rarely ever used to see one. Now they are popping up on trail cams everywhere and I personally know of 4 that was hit in the last year between Crawford & Harrison counties. In fact my buddy who is a state trooper and does taxidermy on the side just mounted one for DNR that was hit.

[QUOTE=river scum;3351017]oh now, i wouldnt say its over. they just need to cut back the doe "quotas". we have the lowest harvest numbers since 03 they say. the herd would bounce back in a couple years if we stop shooting the baby makers.

you didnt see any deer in the 60s, then look what happened! there is always hope! but not without change.[/QUOTE

DNR will never cut back on the doe tags as several years ago,2 state legislature reps had 2 bills written up and both would have gutted the,deer in Indiana. The,worst bill was something like "buy,a license a day and shoot a deer 365 days a year. Anyhow, DNR was mandated by State legislature to,take the deer herd down and the 2 reasons was insurance companies and farmers organizations like Farm Bureau had lobbied the state and the hunters lost out. It was all,hidden and kinda covered up, politics won out and so you take out the does and the herd decreases. Also, in the early 70's, Red timber wolves were released to control deer in a specific area of central western Indiana and DNR didn't admit that, but between us locals killing a few, parvoviruses got the rest. I live half mile from the Crane Weapons Center fence. In the early 80's I told a friend of mine that was a DNR biologist, the state was releasing bobcats on Crane, They released the turkeys there first also. He commented there was no bobcats in Indiana, I got him to come down, we crawled into a abandoned horizontal coal mine shaft and I showed him the tracks, fur, Scat, and finally admitted we had bobcats, but they will never admit to anything. Now in my yard at nite the bobcats set my motion detector lights off all nite long following deer. Daytime we see the baby bobs in pairs and threes with momma and they just walk down the driveway every now and then. You can sit in a tree stand and see one almost every day. Time to control the cats as our turkey population is sad also. Same for all small game as it's now gone and the cats constantly hunt my 40 as I used to quail and rabbit hunt it and still have a few, but the cats have to eat and better the wildlife that our pets. Ask Wisconsin what the grey wolf is doing to their deer herds as they released them. Predator management is something they think about even tho they don't admit it. I said this one other time, and it's a statement from a former retired head of DNR, and his quote was, Our DNR has lost the real purpose of their mission and that is the mission of conservation, not politics.

How do you think coyotes came back to Indiana? After being extinct?

Bigfoot is the real problem......just sayin

DNR takes West Boggs Lake 2 yrs ago and drains it again for the 3rd time to kill the shad that took over the lake. It's not a big lake by any means but still a nice lake. They poison it to kill all the fish after saving a lot of big fish once it was drained. Saved a lot of big fish all kinds and sizes. I built a couple of lakes larges 4 acres and if you talk to a biologist on how to stock a lake in a balanced atmosphere for fishing, supposedly they will tell you to stock all the same size fish and on small lakes, no crappies, say 100 bass, 500 gills mixed with red ears, and 100 cats per acre, throw in couple hundred pounds of minnows for feed and give 3 yrs to grow. They take Boggs, release the catfish, bass, gills,, all fry, then yr later the crappie fry in Oct last yr. after the lake filled up, plus all the big bass up to 8lbs, larg cats. Etc..anyhow, mixed with the fry and biggies and that makes no sense to me. Friends of mine bass fished it last fall, catching tons of 10-12 " bass, others caught a few very nice hand size gills and even 8- 10-11 inch crappies. He asked dnr, where did the big gills and crappies come from and was told, even,tho,they,drained the,lake and poisoned it the poison didn't reach the deepest holes in the lake that was left, so was that a waste of money, time, and our resources? If they didn't kill out all the game fish, they definitely didn't kill out the shad and that was their mission. I also see where USA bass is going to have bass tourneys on it in 2017 and mind you, this is only 2 yrs ago this was done. Kudos to our dnr for a job supposedly well done after spending all that money.