Oregon Hunting, Fishing License Fee Increases On ODFW Commission Agenda

The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission will mull an ODFW proposal to increase the cost of nearly all fishing and hunting licenses as well as create a new ocean angling endorsement as part of a budget request to state lawmakers that also includes $8 million in cuts to some programs.

Agency officials say they’ve been notified by the Governor’s Office that it’s unlikely they will see more than a 1 percent increase in new General Fund allocations in the 2025-27 budget, and so with license sales – equal to one-third of and dubbed the “working capital” of ODFW’s budget – flat in recent years and unlikely to keep up with expenditures by the end of the coming biennium, they’re looking at another round of staggered fee increases as part of a broader “portfolio approach” to steadying future finances.

“The last time we did a fee bill was in 2015 and the last time we adjusted fees was in 2020, so we have remained fiscally sensitive. We’ve looked at controlling costs to maintain programs. Within that, we’ve built a healthy ending balance, but … with license revenue relatively trending flat, we’re now considering requesting a fee adjustment,” Shannon Hurn, ODFW deputy administration director, told a budgetary advisory committee in a mid-May presentation recorded on YouTube.

The agency is also looking to further diversify funding sources – in addition to the General Fund, it receives money from lottery sales, federal disbursals and contracts – to help relieve some of the burden of filling the shortfall on the backs of sportsmen, as well as refocusing some programs.

Before you light your hair on fire and vow another ODFW boycott, to be abundantly clear, this is all in the very early stages.

1. The Fish and Wildlife Commission, which will formally hear about ODFW’s request at its June 14 meeting in Chiloquin near Klamath Falls, has to approve moving forward with it. The deadline for submission to Salem is August 31;

2. Governor Tina Kotek would need to include it in her budget proposal to the 2025 Oregon legislature;

3. Any fee increase would need to pass both legislative chambers;

4. And then be signed into law by the governor to go into effect starting with the 2026 license year.

It will be a tough sell to many price- and issue-sensitive Oregon sportsmen, including ocean anglers who are being asked to not only pay more for licenses but buy a whole new endorsement on top of that. This has not been the best year for one of the state’s marquee fisheries, Willamette springers, and there is concern about declining big game herds and predator management and what’s being done about all that.

But it also might have been an even steeper mountain to climb for ODFW if the commission had picked the other candidate as the new director and the agency had gone along with WDFW on followup Lower Columbia nontribal commercial tangle net fisheries for hatchery Chinook in recent weeks.

Yet if the fee increase and the rest of ODFW’s current budget proposals are not approved, the agency warns of a “significant negative impact” and says it would have to slash license- and non-federally funded programs to balance its books. Which programs?

“It is expected that hatchery production, research and monitoring, fish and wildlife enforcement, and field staff, among others, would be reduced,” an agency outline states.

Part of the reason hatcheries always seem to be on the block in these situations is just how much money they command – $73.5 million of ODFW’s $555.4 million 2023-25 budget – as they produce 70 to 90 percent of Oregon’s salmon, steelhead and trout harvest while also helping to bring in “hundreds of millions of dollars to our state’s economy every year,” per a high-ranking official. And the price to operate the hatcheries and pay for fish food has increased 20 percent every two years recently, the agency says.

For Fish Division, status quo would mean as much as a $10 million shortfall by the end of 2025-27, $21 million by 2027-29.

AS FOR THE CURRENT FEE INCREASE PROPOSAL, youth licenses would largely be sheltered or rise only nominally so as to limit the financial barriers to entry into Oregon’s fishing and hunting world, but those for adults would jump notably as they’re phased in every two years for six years, ODFW documents show.

“For angling products, costs are increased between 14 and 50 percent in 2026, followed by a 6 (and) 6 percent increase in 2028 and 2030,” an agency summary states.

For instance, the Sports Pac bundle – which includes fishing, hunting and shellfish licenses, the combined angling tag required to fish for salmon, steelhead, sturgeon and halibut, and various big game and bird tags or validations – would rise from $196.50 this year and 2025 to $253 in 2026, $283 in 2028 and $311 in 2030.

A resident angler license would go from $44 to $50, $53 and $56 over those same years. A combined angling tag would jump from $46 to $69, $73 and $77. Hatchery harvest tags would increase from $33 to $43, $46 and $49.

Two-rod endorsements would cost $10 more between now and 2030, going from $28 to $34, $36 and then $38, while shellfish licenses would rise from $10 to $13, $14 and $15.

The highest percentage increases are being proposed for fisheries requiring more staffing – ODFW points to Rogue/South Coast winter steelhead. Validations for that would double or more than double between 2024 and 2030, rising from $2 for residents to $4 ($4 to $8 for nonresidents), while wild steelhead harvest cards would rise from $10 to $22 for residents ($20 to $45 for nonresidents). Until management there was split off, both were part of the regular licenses.

The agency is also proposing a new “Saltwater Fishing Endorsement,” which “would be required for fishing in the ocean” and “help fund nearshore fisheries conservation” for important species like black rockfish. It would cost a flat $7 annually through the end of the decade.

“Sport license dollars are only about 7 percent of the Marine Program budget compared to 36 percent commercial contribution, and an endorsement would help us fulfill the need for fishery-independent data to support some of those ocean sport fisheries,” Mike Harrington, ODFW Fish Division administrator, said in that presentation last month.

He pointedly noted that there is a concurrent proposal to increase commercial fees as well.

Spokeswoman Michelle Dennehy says the proposed ocean endorsement would cover all species including salmon and halibut in the Pacific but would not be required for shellfish or to fish in the bays and rivers up and down the coast.

As for the $9.75 Columbia River Basin Endorsement to fish for salmon, steelhead and sturgeon in the watershed, it is actually set through a different legislative process than ODFW’s budget, Dennehy notes. She says it is currently scheduled to sunset in 2026, but the agency is proposing to extend that.

As percentages, hunting licensing costs would increase 12 percent in 2026 and 8 percent in both 2028 and 2030.

An annual license would rise from $34.50 to $39 in 2026, $42 in 2028 and $45 in 2030, with deer tags going from $28.50 to $32, $35 and $38 and controlled hunt applications increasing from $8 to $10, $11 and $12.

“Additional hunting license revenue would support chronic wasting disease research and response,” ODFW states. CWD has been found in deer and elk on the Idaho side of Hells Canyon, leading to the need for increased monitoring of hunter harvests and more across Oregon. The price hike would replace lost General Fund support and provide for the hiring of one full-time and eight seasonal specialists, according to officials.

Hunting fees are used to monitor big game herds, support access programs and provide enforcement, critter management and customer service, among others.

Nonresident hunting, fishing and shellfishing licenses all would also see increases, as would daily and weekly licenses.

For comparison’s sake, in 2014, back on the eve of the last series of price hikes, an annual Oregon angling license was $33, youth license $9, Sports Pac $164.75, combined angling tag $26.50, hatchery harvest tag $16.50, two-rod stamp $17, shellfish license $7, hunting license $29.50, deer tag $24.50 and controlled application $8. Of course, that year gas also averaged just $2.69 a gallon and the median home price in Portland was only $285,500, but since then, the cost of everything has gone up, and inflation in recent years hasn’t helped either.

ODFW estimates that its recreational fee increase proposal would generate $17 million in 2025-27.

IT’S NOT ALL FEES. CUTS ARE ALSO PLANNED to balance the 2025-27 budget request.

“In conjunction with fee adjustments, Fish Division and Administrative Divisions and the Oregon State Police Fish and Wildlife Division will implement $8,000,000 in reductions to ensure the continued financial sustainability of the Department,” ODFW reports.

Elements of that that may draw pushback include decreasing staffing in the marine mammal program (.75 full-time equivalent) due to “reduced workload given success of management at Willamette Falls,” where three more California sea lions were removed earlier this year and returns of winter steelhead – once on the brink of at least one run going extinct due to pinniped predation – hit a 20-year high, likely due to removals and good ocean conditions.

ODFW also proposes to reduce monitoring of coastal and John Day salmonid runs (8.54 FTEs) and close Rock Creek and Salmon River Hatcheries (4 FTEs). A couple years ago, the commission moved to shut down summer steelhead production at the former wildfire-scarred facility, leading to a firestorm of its own and lawsuit, and closing it would “reduce or eliminate” spring Chinook, steelhead and trout fisheries in the Umpqua. Closing the latter hatchery may raise eyebrows because Salmon River fall Chinook are an indicator stock in an international treaty governing salmon harvest.

Officials say the belt-tightening and fee increases all point to the “long-term need to diversify and stabilize funding for the agency.”

As fish and wildlife management becomes more complex, sportsmen “cannot continue to fund the majority of this work – it is simply not sustainable,” ODFW says, and it will only increase barriers to outdoor recreation. Agency brass add that they “will be aggressively pursuing with the Governor’s Office, legislators, and partners additional dedicated funding to sustain fish, wildlife, and their habitats for all Oregonians.” New Director Debbie Colbert was ODFW’s liaison with high honchoes in Salem before moving to her new position last month.

The governor and Oregon Department of Administrative Service’s advice to only plan for a 1 percent increase in new General Fund money to ODFW is relative to the 2023-25 budget and amounts to $709,150. The agency was also advised to “self-fund” its priority new investments by cutting existing programs. While not a fan of the approach, ODFW’s budget proposal includes “services and supply fund shifts from Marine Reserves to address a critical gap in capacity for engaging on ocean energy siting and a fund shift from the Anti-Poaching program to ensure the efforts to transition the agency to a new website can continue.”

What top budget policy priorities ODFW does have focus strongly on the Klamath Basin, where four downstream dams have been removed or are scheduled to come out, opening blocked spawning and rearing habitat for sea-going species. The agency is looking to build fish screening capacity, reintroduce spring Chinook from hatchery broodstocks and increase salmon, steelhead and lamprey monitoring in the watershed.

As an exercise, ODFW also looked at just reducing programs instead of raising license fees, an approach that “was rejected because of the significant negative impact on the department’s ability to meet its statutory responsibilities related to fish and wildlife management.”

Officials says the fee increase and cost reduction proposals were developed with input from the public earlier this year. Asked if the license hike should be implemented in 2026 or 2028 when the shortfall is greater and fee increase could be larger, most respondents said in two years time.

Staffers also looked at sportsmen’s behavior after past license hikes.

“Declines in participation following those fee adjustments were estimated and then applied to identify pricing adjustments that could best minimize drop out and preserve license sale revenues,” documents state.

This story is far from over and will have many touch points for Oregon hunters, anglers, shellfishers and others to provide input as ODFW better fleshes out its reasoning over the coming months leading to the 2025 legislative session. Stay tuned.