Dec. 22, 2021
Jim Harris Managing Editor Arkansas Wildlife Magazine
LITTLE ROCK – Last-second Christmas shopping seems like its own season with the mad dash to secure that special something for that special someone. The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission may be able to ease your worries with an assortment of choices from our handy bag of ideas.
The easiest and one of the more appreciated gifts we can suggest is a magazine subscription to Arkansas Wildlife. A year’s subscription, at $12, includes the extremely popular July-to-July calendar with its spectacular wildlife shots for each month and more handy information, plus space in each date to write in your own noteworthy events to remember when they come around. Along with the calendar, you receive 36-page magazines full of color photos and excellent writing about all things AGFC and the Arkansas outdoors, arriving in your mailbox in January, March, May, September and November.
For $25, or just barely more than the cost of two years of the magazine, you can get a THREE-year subscription and no worry about re-upping each holiday season. Order the magazine online at the Arkansas Wildlife magazine page of the agency’s website, https://www.agfc.com/en/resources/arkansas-wildlife/magazine.
For that special outdoorsman or outdoors-woman in your life, consider giving a gift certificate for a hunting and/or fishing license, or those all-important trout stamps before they head to one of the state’s prolific tailwaters full of rainbows, brown trout and more. There is a variety of denominations from which to choose that correspond to various license prices. Your giftee can use the certificate to buy licenses, duck stamps and the like. They are available at any AGFC Regional Office, or online at www.agfc.com – just click the green box “Buy Licenses/Check Game,” then click “Purchase License or Permit,” and they are listed under the “Merchandise” tab. Or you can call 800-364-4263 by 4:30 p.m. Wednesday (the AGFC offices will be closed Thursday and Friday for the holiday).
A basic hunting or fishing license is $10.50. Combine the two and receive the full bag limit of deer, bear and turkey for $35.50 with a Combination Sportsman’s License. If you’re just focusing on hunting, the $25 Resident Sportsman’s License entitles the holder to hunt all game species during open seasons and to take a total bag limit of deer, bear and two turkeys.
And, for the gift that will truly last and will be appreciated for a lifetime, award someone – maybe a youngster turning 16 – a Nonexpiring Lifetime Resident Hunting and Fishing Sportsman’s Permit. The cost is $1,000, and fees for trout permits, leased land permits, alligator permits, elk permits, state waterfowl stamps and wildlife management area permit hunts are waved with this license as well.
The best news is that AGFC gift certificates can be printed on your home computer and will fit perfectly in the Christmas card you hand to your happy recipient.
Yet another possibility is buying someone a membership to the Arkansas Game and Fish Foundation. An annual membership is $35. Another good possibility through the Foundation is its new “Get It For Game Wardens” Backer Program. Also, the AGFF has some unframed duck prints in the office; call 501-223-6468.
The AGFF also offers gifts from its online store, but those are sent out by a third-party vendor and needed to be ordered by Dec. 15 to assure arrival by Christmas. However, it’s never to early to begin thinking of birthdays coming up in 2022. Visit https://www.agff.org/ for and click on “Shop,” or click on “Join” to buy someone a membership.
Remember, too, that while you’re purchasing a hunting or fishing license for someone, you’re also helping put money back into conservation. The funds from license sales go directly to conservation work throughout the state, and with every license purchase,the AGFC gets a larger share of federal taxes from guns, ammunition and fishing equipment that is earmarked for conservation.
And once the holidays are over, there’s always time to drop by one of the AGFC’s nine nature centers, which have gift shops full of outdoors-oriented possibilities to fill in the gaps for any outdoors enthusiast who didn’t get everything on their Christmas list. Some of the gift shops may still have some copies left over of the AGFC’s 100th anniversary cookbook for purchase, which will help with your holiday feast. Find a nature center near you at https://www.agfc.com/en/explore-outdoors/nature-and-education-centers.