North Dakota Hunting and Fishing Licenses for Veterans and Service Members

Section 20.1-03-12 sets the licence fees, and two of its subdivisions carry the veterans' rates. Subdivision 6 sets a resident fishing licence at ten dollars, instead of twenty-five, for a resident sixty-five or over, a resident totally or permanently disabled, or a resident disabled veteran who has at least a fifty percent service-connected disability or an extra-schedular rating to include individual unemployability that brings the veteran's total disability ratio to at least fifty percent. Subdivision 46 sets a combined general game, habitat stamp, small game and fur-bearer licence at ten dollars for a resident disabled veteran who has at least a fifty percent service-connected disability. The threshold there is fifty percent, and it is worth saying clearly because the figure is widely reported as one hundred percent or unemployability. The statute says fifty. Section 20.1-03-12.3 exempts the disabled veteran licence from the two dollar surcharge that is otherwise added to resident fishing and combination licences for the aquatic nuisance species program. The benefit that costs nothing at all is in 20.1-03-04(9). Upon presentation of valid leave papers and a valid North Dakota operator's licence, a resident who is on leave and on active duty as a member of the United States armed forces or the United States merchant marine may hunt small game, fish or trap during the open season without a licence. The merchant marine is named alongside the armed forces, which almost no other state does. Residency for licences is widened for members in three ways under 20.1-02-05. A member of the armed forces within the state on duty or leave counts as a resident, as does a nonresident current North Dakota national guard member. A member stationed outside the state who shows proof of North Dakota residence and pays the fee is issued licences as a resident, and the director "shall issue the resident deer hunting license on proper application" to such a member, with that deer licence issued without being subject to the deer lottery. For a deployed North Dakotan, that last clause is the valuable one: the lottery is the hard part of getting a deer tag, and the member is taken out of it. A separate provision covers a member who received an expeditionary medal or campaign badge during the previous year's deer gun season while stationed outside the state, allowing one white-tailed deer gun licence in the unit of their choice outside the lottery, with late applications filled based on availability. Applications for the disabled veteran licences go through the Game and Fish Department, with the VA documentation of the rating.