Outdoor Insights: Time to raise Minnesota fishing license fees for nonresidents? And more election season thoughts

Quick comments on a few stories that have appeared in the news recently…

• A buddy’s post on social media last weekend lamented the layers of permits and expense to hunt North Dakota for waterfowl these days. His post went viral among Minnesotans tired of how North Dakota treats nonresidents, especially given the one-zone, one-time waterfowl structure from 2025 that limits hunters to one area of the state for seven days. Then, from certificates to watercraft AIS stickers to stamps, the total tops $200 fast. One comment even asked, “What’s the price of fine without all the stuff lol.”

During a chat at a recent event promoting wild game chef Hank Shaw’s new cookbook, a hard-core 30-something hunter and I discussed the crazy fees we encounter for upland birds and waterfowl in the Dakotas. Rightfully fed up, he declared that Minnesota needs to charge more for nonresidents fishing in the state.

Your seasoned managing editor sighed and (patiently) explained that some of us fought that battle a quarter-century ago and watched our resort industry kill those common-sense proposals.

Times have changed, however, and perhaps that issue needs revisiting by our next governor and Legislature. Some North Dakotans declare that they have great fishing in their state, so who needs Minnesota?

That’s partially true, but lots of Red River Valley residents own second homes in western Minnesota. It’s long past time to get their attention with the same exorbitant fees their states have levied against Minnesotans for decades.

MORE COVERAGE FROM MINNESOTA OUTDOOR NEWS: 

Minnesota’s deer harvest trending well ahead of 2025

Minnesota DNR seeks feedback for potential changes to winter trout season

Minnesota’s black bear kill rises to largest total in over two decades

• The MeatEater podcast this year interviewed Rob Sand, the state auditor in Iowa who is running for that state’s governorship. Sand advocates for an issue that we rarely hear candidates for any office pitching: wetlands protection.

The serious deer hunter and outdoorsman believes in restoring wetlands for a multitude of practical reasons, including flood mitigation, healthier soils and rivers (which are currently full of nitrates) and more wildlife habitat.

Sand told the Iowa Dispatch this year that he is “not satisfied” with his state’s efforts to address water quality. “I want us to have the single biggest expansion of wetlands and grazing land that we have ever seen in the state of Iowa,” Sand said. “You can fish, you can photograph, all kinds of fun stuff that you can do in wetlands.”

The latest polling shows Sand in a strong position in Minnesota’s neighbor to the south in 2026. However that race ends up, it’s refreshing to have someone talking intelligently about wetlands protection, especially in an ag-intensive state like Iowa.

• Criticizing the Minneapolis City Council is too easy, but a vote earlier this month involving an oldie-but-a-goodie topic in this space – free-ranging cats – demands a retort. It wasn’t purely about cats; the council wanted to require human monitors in robotaxis to protect rideshare driving jobs. But Councilman Jason Chavez also worried that driverless cars would kill more cats.

Arguments regarding self-driving cars aside (I have no dog, and certainly no cat, in that fight), the fact that any free-ranging animal – from opossums to crows to feral cats – might get hit by one is a ridiculous reason to ban them. A majority (7-6) of the council passed the ordinance, but mercifully, Mayor Jacob Frey vetoed it.

• Remember the horrible U.S. House legislation in 2022 called the Repealing Excise Tax on Unalienable Rights Now (RETURN) Act?

It would have repealed the federal excise taxes implemented under the 1937 Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act that fund a massive chunk of wildlife management in the United States. A broad coalition of sporting groups and outdoors media nixed it fast, but it’s gotten some renewed political attention next door in Wisconsin given that gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany was a co-sponsor on the bill. Glad folks haven’t forgotten that issue.