Hunting and fishing licenses will soon go on sale for Texas outdoorsmen

New hunting and fishing licenses will go on sale Aug. 15. This is a good time to review your options and make sure you’re legal when the new ones kick in Sept. 1.

You'll need a new hunting license for 2024-25, plus stamps or endorsements for archery, ducks and oversized redfish, plus a federal duck stamp and and an endorsement noting you have answered your harvest questions upon buying the license.

Licenses once were much simpler to acquire and keep. Old-timers used to unscrew the butt plate on their shotguns and hide their license there. Joe McBride showed me one that had been there since 1917 in the butt of an old shotgun someone had traded.

I’d love to have licenses my dad and granddad used in the early part of the 20th century. If they had bought one. I’ll never know if they did or if they just took their chances when they went out.

There were times you could hunt small game in your home county without a license. But those days are gone. It’s just much simpler to buy your license before Sept. 1, and then you’re covered wherever you go in Texas.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Hunting and fishing licenses will soon go on sale for Texas outdoorsmen