Length of Sport Fishing License

January 6, 2011

Question: I just purchased my annual sport fishing license and the salmon and sturgeon report cards, and received almost 10 feet of documents! Why so long and how useable are all of these documents?

Answer: California fishing and hunting license sales are now processed through DFG’s new Automated License Data System (ALDS). Anglers and hunters can expect their annual fishing and hunting licenses to now be approximately six inches long. The new harvest/report cards run between 28 and 47 inches each in length. When a license with multiple harvest/report cards are purchased and printed together, the resulting document can extend over 10 feet.

In most cases, the new design is longer simply because the same instructions and regulations previously printed on the front and back of the old cards are now printed only on the front of the new ALDS harvest/report cards. The unavoidable result is the documents running longer. To reduce the length, trim off the instructions portion to store elsewhere.

Although additional harvest/report cards will make the printed document longer, please keep in mind:

1.   Each document is unique and can be separated from each other. Thus, bring only the cards you intend to use during your activity.

2.   The instructions and regulations portion of the harvest report card can be separated from the actual tag or report cards. For example, if you remove the instructions and regulations of an abalone card, it will reduce the length by 40 percent. (Anglers and hunters are still required to follow the instructions and rules whether separated from the tag or report card or not.)

3.   The licenses and harvest report cards fold up to a very usable size – even the longest items will easily fold to wallet size.

4.   In many cases, the folded ALDS license item is smaller than its previous counterpart issued under the manual paper license system. If you have an old license holder around, try folding and inserting your license and harvest/report cards into it, and you’ll likely find your new documents to be small in size and the license holder will protect your documents and keep them handy.