The deal Tennessee lawmakers offered their wildlife agency in 2025 was straightforward. Drop the licence fee increase, and the legislature would find the money elsewhere so hunters and anglers would not keep carrying the agency by themselves.
The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency dropped the increase. It was the first time in the agency's history that lawmakers had blocked one. The money never arrived.
Now TWRA is back with essentially the same package, and it is not pretending otherwise.
"The Agency will be bringing a nearly identical license fee increase proposal as what was proposed in 2024," said Emily Buck, the agency's director of public relations, adding that TWRA had folded in "several non-price related improvements to the structure."
The hole has grown. "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. Several million in expenses have already been cut, and she said more cuts are coming whatever happens to the fees.
The cost to anglers
Most licences rise around 27 percent. The resident combination hunting and fishing licence goes from $33 to $42; the all-in resident Sportsman Licence from $165 to $185; the resident one-day fishing permit from $6.50 to $9.
For visitors, the shape changes as well as the price. Tennessee currently forces non-residents into a minimum three-day fishing licence at $20.50, which has never made sense for someone booking a half-day guided trip. Under the proposal, $20 buys a genuine one-day permit with no trout privileges, while three days costs $50 - meaningfully more for out-of-state anglers spending a week on Chickamauga Lake.
Chattanooga outdoors writer Richard Simms, who broke down the package for NewsChannel 9, noted that as a former fishing guide he fielded the three-day question constantly and always ended up apologising for the agency.
Buck said the restructure serves the biologists too. "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," she said.
Why the alternative failed
Rep. Pat Marsh, a Shelbyville Republican, had a fix: hand TWRA 10 percent of the payments the Tennessee Valley Authority makes to the state in lieu of property taxes, worth roughly $16 to $18 million a year, every 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."
The sympathy was broad. "All of the TWRA is held on the backs of hunters and fishers," said Rep. Jeremy Faison, chair of the House Republican Caucus. "We need the TWRA to be successful." House Speaker Cameron Sexton said of the dedicated funding idea, "I think it could happen."
Sen. Jeff Yarbro, a Nashville Democrat, supported taking it seriously but questioned whether the state could carry it. "It needs to ensure that it will pay for itself, and we're not tapping into other priorities too much to subsidize this effort," Yarbro said, arguing that Republican tax cuts had drained the budget's flexibility. "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."
Marsh's bill was filed "behind the budget" - alive only if the money made the final allocation. The Tennessee Wildlife Federation says those closed-door negotiations failed, and no public explanation has followed. TWRA got a one-time $10 million instead, the stopgap House Majority Leader William Lamberth had described as a way to "patch some of that hole."
Commission chair Chris Devaney had put the structural issue plainly: "The hunting and fishing fees, it ebbs and flows who buys those." Jason Maxedon, the executive director who withdrew the 2025 increase and who retires on November 30, warned at the time that failure meant a $12 million deficit. It is now $18 million.
The Tennessee Fish and Wildlife Commission passed this package once in late 2024 and has to pass it again. Comments go to twra.rulescomments@tn.gov, subject line "License Rule," by August 11, with a Nashville meeting on August 21. Approved fees would start next July.
