TOPIC:

Gent's do you carry 3 fishing license so you don't have to worry about crossing borders when fishing offshore? I found myself in Michigan with no license for about 15 minutes before I noticed I crossed the state line. I quickly shuffled back into Indiana. Many thanks in advance for your replies.

Typcially yes. I wish they would create a univeral lake wide license but that would be tough to do as money talks.

I refuse to pay for the Michigan for an out of state annual license and stay out of the Michigan waters. I do have an annual Illinois and of course Indiana so I can still go North, just need to stay West.

Michigan daily license is cheaper than an IL daily license. And - knock on wood - I've never seen or heard of an IL fish-cop checking Lake Michigan fishers in the part of the lake easily accessible to Indiana. I have heard of Michigan officers patrolling offshore. I make sure all on board are properly licensed.

PS: I've never heard of an officer giving a group a warning to go back. Especially the IN border. North of 45.7 - you are not in IN anymore.

I carry all 3 states

Thanks for the info gents, good grief they need to make a universal!

I doubt there will ever be a universal license. This is one of those ideas that sounds simple and great until you look at all the underlying challenges and realize it's that way for a reason

First and foremost, states like to have individual control over their own waters.There will almost always be differences in regulations, such as seasons, bag limits, minimum lengths, etc. Habitat, fish populations, and people populations are very different around the lake, which does not suit well to homogeneous regulations. It's hard enough managing the salmonid fishery cooperatively lakewide, if you toss a universal license in there, it will only add to difficulties.

Secondly, the way federal money is doled out by law includes numbers of licenses sold by states. Having a universal license complicates that somewhat.

Thirdly, different states have different budget needs. Taking away their flexibility to address those is going to be a non-starter.. The states also have different pricing for their licenses due to a large variety of factors. How do you price a universal license? You can't have individual states selling the same license for different prices. If you raise prices, you are going to price out a lot of people that only fish one state (which is the vast majority of folks), and that is completely unfair to them. If you sell a universal license for the price of one state's license, you're undercutting funding of all the other states, at a time when states are already struggling with adequate funding for natural resource departments. And if you raise the price for a universal license, then what's the difference from buying separate state licenses anyways, other than adding additional complications?


Finally, the number of anglers that fish multiple states is undoubtedly a very low percentage of the overall whole. This site is mostly diehard anglers that fish within 10-20 miles of 3 different states, so we're the exception rather than the rule. The existing system works well enough that it is not going to get disrupted for the sake of a small minority of people.



When you get down to it, if you are an Indiana resident, you pay 142 bucks for all 3 states. I dunno about you guys, but I spend more than that on lures and terminal tackle in a season. Even before gas, rods, ice, launch fees, etc. If you buy Michigan and Indiana and go fishing 20 times in a season, that's about 5 bucks a trip. Is it really that big of a hassle or financial burden to buy multiple licenses?

Good points Ben.

Not to pile on, but I forgot to add the political nature of things

Many if not most states have their license prices set by the legislature. That can end up having a lot of political side effects - for a good example, just look at Minnesota right now. Although recently there have been struggles all over.

Minnesota hunters and anglers are supporting small increases to their license fees (think 3 to 4 bucks more for a fishing license). Over 50 hunting and angling groups sent in letters of support. The governor is behind it. Al Lindner campaigned for it. Bud Grant, former Vikings coach, campaigned for it. The DNR is behind it. Nobody spoke against the fee proposal when it was before their natural resources committee in the senate, and a ton of people showed up to speak in favor. And yet the license fee increases are not supported by the legislature.

That's in a situation contained within one state, a state with broad public support for it, and they're still having issues with simple license fee issues. Now imagine throwing 4 states into the mix, all with different politics, trying to regulate a multi-state license. It'd be a nightmare

Ok for the original question. Yes I as the boat owner usually buy all three but base that on time fished in the different states. If I am not going to fish Illinois much I will not buy an annual but purchase daily licenses the days I go West. I do most of my fishing in Indiana and Michigan(except my protest year after the price increase) so those definitly. For the friends and family members I take fishing with me I will always inform them of where we will be fishing and ask them to purchase a daily or annual license at their discretion based on how many times they are going to fish with me. If they don't buy an out of state I will not leave the waters of the state they have a license for, if they dont have a license they don't touch a rod, and no rods are set for them in the trolling setup. I have never had an issue with anyone not purchasing at least a daily based on where we will fish for the day.

Politics will never allow a multi state license. As stated Indiana residents are really the only group that would benefit from a multi state license and there just isn't a big enough group of fisherman.

The biggest issue most had with Michigan changes was the size of the increase at one time. If the price would have gradually went up I am sure most would not have complained or protested. The lack of sales for that first year proved that to some extent and we saw a 10% decrease in year two. Didn't quite compensate for the 90% increase the previous year but was a small victory in getting legislature to understand that they did not do the best thing for their state. The one thing that I was most upset about was that the increase was done by the legislature and not by the DNR, we have seen that in Indiana also with the recent change to hunting rifle usage changes. This bothers me the most as we have Divisions in charge of the regulations of our resources and they are overturned at the whim of goverment with no concern for wildlife conservation at all. Back in the late 80's or early 90's while still a Michigan resident I voted for the DNR to be its own independant Division with full control over the states wildlife resources, to run on license fees collected, outside the general fund that kept taking those funds raised for wildlife management. So when the increase plan came from the Governor and I see other states doing the same kinds of No Regard changes it really gets me steaming. I have said before I truely belive that the DNR's are doing the best with what they have for the most part but it is the multiple goverment interactions that are really screwing things up for us sportsman.