Fishing benefits from the Access / Depredation Fee

When you buy an Idaho hunting and fishing license, your license fee pays for a wide range of fish and wildlife management activities. For instance, hunting and fishing license and tag fees foot the entire bill for Fish and Game’s conservation enforcement program.

One Fee, Many Uses

Starting May 1, 2017 Fish and Game’s new Access Depredation Fee applies to the purchase of all resident and nonresident annual licenses.

The fee will generate an estimated $2 million in annual revenue to provide:

$1 million to improve access to private land from willing landowners for fishing and hunting
$1 million to compensate landowners for depredation losses and to prevent big game crop damage

How Fishing Benefits

Half of the new annual revenue raised by the new Access/Depredation Fee will be used to improving fishing and hunting on private land from willing landowners.

In addition, Fish and Game will spend a larger portion of each fishing license sold to improve fishing in Idaho from $2 to $5 without increasing the price of a fishing license.

The increase in the angling improvement portion of fishing license sales increases the fund used to improve fishing in Idaho by about $750,000 annually.

Fish and Game’s Access/Depredation Fee benefits anglers by improving access to favorite rivers, streams, lakes, and reservoirs, and it dedicates more funding to improve and maintain hatcheries and popular fishing spots.