No More Portable Licenses

Some good news for those that don’t keep portable shelters on lake overnight!

“Fee dropped for portable fishing shelters
Doug Smith,star tribune

Minnesota’s ice anglers won’t have to license their portable fishing shelters any more — unless they plan on leaving them on the ice overnight.

That’s the result of a new law passed by the 2007 Legislature. Owners of about 60,000 portable shelters will be affected. Few portable shelters are left on the ice overnight.

Ice fishing shacks left overnight, which obviously would include most of the state’s 90,000 permanent shelters, still must be licensed.

“The Legislature decided we shouldn’t be licensing portables anymore,” said Bob Meier, assistant commissioner in charge of government relations for the Department of Natural Resources. “They wanted to give people with portable shelters a break.”

That saves anglers with portable she! lters $11.50 a year but would cost the DNR about $768,000 in lost revenue. So the Legislature increased nonresident fishing license fees to offset that loss.

The cost of nonresident individual fishing license, now $34, will increase to $37.50 next year. The increase is expected to raise about $680,000 yearly.

Nonresident anglers took another hit: A $2 surcharge for aquatic invasive species management also is being added to all nonresident fishing licenses.

With the usual $1 issuing fee, that means a nonresident individual will pay $40.50 for a Minnesota fishing license. The state sells about 266,000 nonresident fishing licenses yearly.

Minnesota residents pay a $5 invasive species surcharge every three years with their boat registration fees.”

The not having to buy the license is nice BUT personally I prefer to see the DNR NOT take a possible loss with this as I want to see the proper amount of money is in their hands to create habitat, stock, and manage waters so we can have good fishing in our lakes and rivers. Just my 2 cents.
Thanks, Bill

Bill,
I saw that they are raising the price for non-resident licenses. This will make up for the money lost from portable licenses. I think a non-resident fee hike is way over due. Keeps our neighboring states in check with their license fees.

So if I bought mine in March already, I wasted my $$$…

I realize I needed it to fish this late winter, just bad timing on the DNR’s part…

big g

being a non-resident fisherperson in MN, I see this as a “Well, I’ve got some good news and I got some bad news, which one you want first?” Yes the new fees are still cheaper than SD, not sure on ND or WI.

With Wisconsin being $50 and South Dakota being $60. The fee, after the hike in Minnesota still is only $39.50. You just don’t hear to many compliants about the Minnesota DNR price gouging.

wisconsin is 50.00? I paid 68.00 for family. which seemed cheap to me but I guess not then. oh well worth the money.

Wonder if they’ll refund the money I paid for a ticket in Feb? Not. Good news though. I always thought it was a farce for portables. Hat license. Even more so when I got a ticket for having it half open as a windbreak.

After paying $475 to hunt deer in Iowa, I say lets get the price gouging going.

Iowa has deer
MN has lakes Seems like a fair trade

You are 100% right Farmboy! I am also one of those fools that pays $475 to deer hunt. Don’t get me wrong, the hunting and experience is top notch. I just think our fishing is top notch too. Lots of Iowa plates headed north pulling boats right now.

It is a tough pill to swallow I don’t mind it as much as my wife does I may even have to start telling her before she sees the bill come

So they dropped the out of state portable license too….I think it was $34 that was a little crazy???

I’ll pay the extra for the license and not have top pay the $34 for the shelter license…..