So here's the thing about that, and it's a point that ODFW carefully glossed over when making their pitch to the legislature for this fee. If a pioneer licensee with the free license purchased a hunting "privilege", that act substantiated that they had a hunting license and were thus eligible for pitman robertson funds. If they purchased a fishing "privilege" (ie a combined harvest tag) that was evidence of a fishng license and they were eligile for dingall johnson funds. To get the funds from the federal government, what was required was proof of a hunting or fishing license, not a particular dollar amount although the minimum that the licensee had to spend was $6 to qualify for both. So pioneer licensees who purchased an upland game "privilege", a deer tag, a waterfowl stamp or any other hunting "privilege" qualified that licensee for matching federal funds. Approximately 30% of all pioneer licensees did purchase additional "privileges" and so the state was already getting the federal funds. It was the other 70% that didn't purchase additional "privileges" that the state wanted to collect the federal funds for. A lot of those folks (according to Director Melcher) just got the license because it was free (apparently his mother was one of those). How many of those didn't purchase anything once the fee was attached, I have no idea. Prior to 2007, the pioneer license was a one and done license, you paid the fee and were issued a card (my dad carried one for years) which never needed to be renewed. In 2007, the department started requiring annual renewal of the license (see the handwriting on the wall), and then in 2015, instituted the annual fee. ODFW likes to publicize the jump in license sales, I haven't actually investigated how much of that jump was because pioneer licenses now counted as "sales", but it had to be a not insignificant amount. If overall license sales increases are looked at as a proportion of the increase in state population, then sales up to 2015, the last time I looked at these figures, were going down proportionately. ODFW doesn't do particularly well at marketing it's "product" which is why they are constantly looking at other sources of revenue (can you say Columbia river endorsement or "parking fee") and the legislature formed a committee to investigate further sources of revenue. Things like a surcharge on the bottle bill, increased hospitality fees, tax of marijuana, and other rather hair brained schemes, but they finally gave a recommendation to the legislature to just increase the state income tax. No idea where it went from there. It's important to remember that ODFW is a department of state government, not an outdoor nonprofit. Like other government employees, department personnel qualify for PERS benefits, and in 2015 when the pioneer license fee was being instilled, wages and benefits were greater than 50% of department expenditures (57% is the number that comes to mind). So these increased revenues were going to be used to offset ever increasing issues with state employee entitlements. Between 1984 and 2015 the number of FTE employees for the department increased from 750 to 1500, so these entitlements were growing substantially. The department could have easily just rebated the first $3 of a hunting "privilege" and the first $3 of a fishing "privilege" which would have made the pioneer license still essentially free while satisfying the federal requirements, and at the same time encentivizing people to actually buy privileges, but apparently the $6 was a temptation they couldn't resist.
