Washington Fish-Hunt Fee Bills Moving In Olympia

A pair of bills that would increase the price of most Washington fishing and hunting licenses by 38 percent and bring back the Columbia River endorsement have passed out of budget committees in Olympia this week.

Substitute Senate Bill 5538 – the license bill – received a voice-vote do-pass recommendation from the Senate Ways and Means Committee this afternoon and moves on to the Rules Committee. If eventually passed by both chambers of the legislature and signed into law by Governor Bob Ferguson, it would be the first increase since 2011 and second since 1998.

An amendment that was folded into the bill today would limit the ability of the Fish and Wildlife Commission to use surcharges on license fees in subsequent years to account for inflation. With the tweak, they could only raise prices to “fund compensation, central services, and other increased operating costs approved by the Legislature” rather than to pay for anything deemed inflationary.

Senator Mark Schoesler (R-Ritzville), who had an amendment which wasn’t voted on but would have removed that surcharge authority from the bill, had raised concerns about the language around inflation during the original bill’s public hearing on Tuesday.

Other tweaks in the substitute bill include increasing certain big game and turkey raffle ticket costs from $25 to $30 and designating that 5 percent instead of 2 percent from the sale of small game licenses go to the Eastern Washington Pheasant Enhancement Account.

According to state legislative staff, SSB 5583 would raise $19.3 million per biennium, but a fiscal note attached to the bill also forecasts that the fee hike will reduce fishing and hunting license sales by 11 percent.

As a reminder, Washington fishing and hunting license dollars go into the State Wildlife Account for fish and wildlife management activities; they are not diverted into the state General Fund, due to state and federal statutes related to the Pittman-Robertson and Dingell-Johnson critter restoration acts.

During that Tuesday public hearing, Nello Picinich of Coastal Conservation Association of Washington expressed concerns about the bill and said his organization didn’t support the surcharge authority granted to the commission. He noted the bill was not WDFW-agency request legislation and there had been no outreach beforehand on the large proposed increase. It dropped following state budget deficit forecasts last December of some $10-12 billion, which have since been updated to $15 billion.

Picinich said the increase would be detrimental to outdoor industries, and that with decreased opportunities, it would be difficult for anglers and hunters to want to pay more for less.

While nearly all of the 776 people who signed in on the bill were against it, it is supported by Alexei Calambokidis of Trout Unlimited, Paula Swedeen of Conservation Northwest and Larry Phillips of the American Sportfishing Association.

“We did support the increase, mostly because we don’t want a few bucks to be an obstacle to opportunities, and we haven’t had an increase in license fees in over a decade,” said Phillips this evening.

He did note the state’s budgetary mess, and expressed concerns about pricing families out of fishing and leaning heavily on sportsmen to fund WDFW, but added, “Everyone benefits from the services WDFW provides, so we all need to pay our share.”

Signing in “other” were WDFW, Dan Wilson of Washington Backcountry Hunters and Anglers and Tom Echols of the Hunters Heritage Council.

If passed, the price of most fishing and hunting licenses and whatnot would increase starting July 1, 2025. The exception is that seniors – sportsmen 70 and older – would receive a 66 percent discount on hunting licenses.

As for that bill resurrecting 2010-19’s Columbia River endorsement, HB 2003 was moved out of the House Appropriations Committee Wednesday on a party-line 19-12 do-pass/do-not-pass vote. As a reminder of ancient history, it would require Washington anglers to buy the endorsement to fish for salmon or steelhead in the big creek or any of its tributaries from the Rocky-Tongue Point line up to Chief Joseph Dam.

The base price would be $7.50, but after dealer fees, etc., it would ring up as $8.75 at the counter. The bill would go into effect January 1, 2026 and raise an estimated $3 million per biennium (less so in the first one because of its implementation date) that would be dedicated to “facilitate recreational salmon and steelhead selective fishing opportunities on the Columbia river and its tributaries, including scientific monitoring and evaluation, data collection, permitting, reporting, and enforcement.”

HB 2003 must also pass both chambers of the legislature and be signed into law by the governor to go into effect.

Clarification: Thanks to an eagle-eyed reader, I added a caption to the legislative breakout of current and proposed license fees. Those represent base license prices before the dealer and transaction fees are applied at checkout.