"Save to computer" rewards anglers and hunters looking to replace licenses

Jason Keller, the state wildlife officer assigned to Lake County, has a better way to replace a lost or damaged fishing/hunting license.

And it will legally save someone $4, too, Keller says.

However, to do so means that a license holder will have to go on-line first to purchase his or her permit instead of visiting a license-issuing outlet.

Keller says it’s not cheating, either, but is simply a new way of doing things based on emerging technology with hunters and anglers finally catching up to all of the electronic equipment gizmo changes.

The bottom line is that if you purchase a license, save the data to the hard drive of your computer under an Adobe PDf file, Keller said and who was second by another Ohio Division of Wildlife official.

“We were very well aware of this going in, but we don’t know how many people are actually doing it,” said Kory Brown, the Wildlife Division official in charge of implementing the agency’s new on-line license-issuing system.

To date the Wildlife Division has sold about 1.25 million licenses, permits and stamps of all kinds. Of this about 145,000 have been general hunting licenses, Brown said.

“The Friday and Saturday before the start of the archery season we’ll sells thousands of deer permits, like what we see the weekend before the start of the firearms deer-hunting season,” Brown said. “There will be a huge push of hunting license sales; there always is.”

Brown did say also that the Wildlife Division is giving thought for next year of allowing hunters and anglers to obtain duplicate licenses at no cost.

“It’s something that we are looking at,” Brown said.

As for the licenses and permits being bought this year, hunters especially “really need to understand that they’ll have to protect their deer tags before, during and after the hunt,” Brown says.

That is because the paper being used by issuing agents is no more waterproof than the standard ream paper used for home computer printing machines.

“I personally use a Zip-lock-type little plastic I.D. holder that actually has a hole in it that can be used with a string,” Brown said. “You can get these at most office supply stores.”

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischkorn@News-Herald.com