In 2025, Tennessee lawmakers did something they had never done before: they made it clear they would reject a hunting and fishing licence fee increase, and the state's wildlife agency withdrew it rather than lose the vote. The legislators had an argument for doing so - that anglers and hunters should not carry the whole cost of the agency alone - and they had a plan to fix it.
The plan failed. The increase is back.
The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency announced this month that it is seeking public comment on a second licence package, and it is not a compromise. Emily Buck, TWRA's director of public relations, was direct about that.
"The Agency will be bringing a nearly identical license fee increase proposal as what was proposed in 2024," Buck said. "Additionally, TWRA worked to include several non-price related improvements to the structure."
The numbers behind it have not improved either. "Due to inflation in expenses and increased cost of state-mandated expenses such as salary and other charges, the Agency is facing an $18 million budget shortfall that must be addressed," Buck said, adding that TWRA has already cut several million from its budget and that hunters and anglers should expect further cuts regardless.
What anglers would pay
Most licences would rise by an average of 27 percent. A resident combination hunting and fishing licence goes from $33 to $42. The resident Sportsman Licence, the catch-all option, rises from $165 to $185. The one-day temporary fishing permit for residents goes from $6.50 to $9.
Non-residents face a restructure as much as an increase. The current $20.50 buys a minimum three-day fishing licence, a rule that has long irritated visitors booking a single guided trip. Under the new package they could buy a one-day permit for $20 - no trout - while three days would cost $50. For out-of-state anglers running several days on Chickamauga Lake, that is a straightforward rise.
Richard Simms, the Chattanooga outdoors writer who reported the proposal for NewsChannel 9, wrote that during his years running a fishing guide business he was regularly asked why a four-hour trip required a three-day licence, and that he had always felt obliged to apologise to clients on the agency's behalf.
Hunters get one genuine simplification. Equipment-based supplemental deer licences disappear; instead of buying a $33 supplemental for each of archery, muzzleloader and firearm seasons, a resident buys one $42 supplemental deer licence. For non-residents that single permit is $200.
Buck said the redesign has a data purpose as well as a customer-service one. "Our hope is that the restructure will make it easier for hunters and anglers to navigate the system to identify the licenses they need," she said. "The shift to species-based supplemental permits will also provide TWRA biologists with better data that informs the season setting process as well as wildlife management in general."
The funding fight behind it
The reason this is a second attempt rather than a first is a bill that never got a vote on its merits.
State Rep. Pat Marsh, a Shelbyville Republican, had proposed giving TWRA a permanent annual allocation drawn from the payments the Tennessee Valley Authority makes to the state in lieu of property taxes - 10 percent of them, worth roughly $16 to $18 million a year.
"The rates not going up and they're spending down their reserves," Marsh said. "And we've got to have them to be a viable partner with all our hunting and fishing and outdoors and canoeing and everything. It's very important."
The political sympathy was real and bipartisan in tone. "All of the TWRA is held on the backs of hunters and fishers," said Rep. Jeremy Faison, the House Republican Caucus chair. "They add a benefit to our state and they bring an unbelievable amount of revenue, tax revenue from hunters and fishers coming from all over. We need the TWRA to be successful."
House Speaker Cameron Sexton said the proposal was under consideration and that "I think it could happen."
Not everyone was convinced the mechanism was sound. Senate Democrat Jeff Yarbro of Nashville backed the principle while warning about the arithmetic. "That is something that I think the legislature should take seriously," Yarbro said. "It needs to ensure that it will pay for itself, and we're not tapping into other priorities too much to subsidize this effort." He tied the squeeze to Republican tax cuts: "There's a cost to fiscal irresponsibility and I think we're going to continue seeing it arise both here and across agencies across the state."
The bill was placed "behind the budget," meaning it would only take effect if the money appeared in the final budget. According to the Tennessee Wildlife Federation, those negotiations failed. No one has publicly explained why. TWRA received a one-time $10 million infusion instead - the patch House Majority Leader William Lamberth had flagged as the fallback - and remains in deficit.
Chris Devaney, chair of the Tennessee Fish and Wildlife Commission, had already named the underlying problem: "The hunting and fishing fees, it ebbs and flows who buys those." Former executive director Jason Maxedon, who withdrew the 2025 increase and who announced in July that he retires on November 30, had warned during that debate that failure would leave the agency "in a $12 million deficit." The gap is now $18 million.
What happens next
The Tennessee Fish and Wildlife Commission already passed this package once, in late 2024, and must pass it again. Written comments go to twra.rulescomments@tn.gov with "License Rule" in the subject line by August 11. A meeting follows in Nashville on August 21. If it clears, the new fees take effect next July.