For decades I got mine at Boyer's Junction, a small, family-run grocery store and butcher shop with a room for hunting and fishing stuff. The owner was a WWII marine and an accomplished hunter. The store was full of his mounts, all kinds of big game heads. When was the last time you saw that in a grocery store?

It used to be a big deal. You'd meet a bunch of local acquaintances, all of us buying our licenses the same day, last minute before the doe applications had to be sent. It was a good time with everybody busting everybody else's chops. They stopped selling them a few years after the owner passed.

Then for years I bought it at a local hardware store, DeTurk Hardware in Kutztown. The owner, an accomplished trophy buck hunter, kept a pic of me and my middle daughter with a season's catch of red fox on the wall behind the counter. They stopped selling them two years ago.

Last year I bought it at Dick's Sporting Goods. They are now the closest Issuing Agent. Places to buy in person are getting few and far between. The experience kinda sucked, the dipstick counter guy was clueless and seemed put out because I get about every hunting and furtaking permit available.

So...I tried it online this year for the first time.

There is a note on the website that it could take "up to ten days" to receive the licenses. It took 16 days. I bought it June 21, it came today.

I was getting worried, we send for the first round of doe stamps this weekend and you need a current license to do that.

Buying online was easy and not much of a hassle. But I sure do miss the good old days of jawing with friends and swapping hunting stories with the store owners.

PA boys, did you all get your online licenses in time to send your doe apps this weekend?

Georgia has online everything. Of course when it first came out I hated it, now I hate hunting states that don’t have it. Too easy. I haven’t carried a paper copy in several years now. Just pull out my phone and show the GW if he shows up. We tag deer and turkeys the same way. I fill it out even in areas with no cell service and when I reach areas of service it goes through.

PA could go that route.

Two years ago I was checked by a warden while pheasant hunting on a state game land near my camp. I had left my hunting license in my deer day pack back at camp and told hm so. He was able to pull up my info on his phone and verify that I did indeed have a hunting license as well as the pheasant stamp required for the rooster I had in my game bag.

Lugnut:

Do they sell the licenses in the Town Clerk's office ? They do here in NY.

I don't know what that is Canvasback.

They don't issue fishing and hunting licenses in the Town Hall ??

Here you do the work on line and get charged a issue fee 2X even.

We can get all of our licenses on a card like a drivers licenses to keep in our wallet
Beats all those papers folded and stuffed in our wallet
Most things that have been illegal in Alabama Hunting, such as baiting deer, which the game and fish dept
Cried it was killing our deer and nite hunting for coyotes and wild hogs, all of a sudden is ok as long as you buy a 15 dollar permit.
The Alabama fish and game department is as corrupt as it gets.

In my county the courthouse is where all those different offices are housed. The county treasurer issues our doe stamps but I don’t think they sell hunting licenses there. I wouldn’t want to drive into that cesspool of a city even if they did sell them.

If you have your.phone on you, we don't even have to print out licenses in Ohio any more.

Never paid a lot of attention to where I got my license. And I have had a lifetime license for my resident state since 1983. Only had to buy non-resident license when I went out of state and now, many of them are electronic, easy peasy. All of my non-resident licenses and kill reports last year were done via my phone

But I do miss having to carry big game to the check station to register the kill. That was a big deal, especially for my sons when they started hunting. But just like the places where the OP bought his license, not many of the businesses that were check stations around me are still in business. Can you imagine taking a buck to WalMart to check it in?

yes county treasures still sell licenses.

I didn’t know that. I’ve been buying licenses since 1969 and never bought one from a county treasurer.

Have had a lifetime license for many years.

there are a few rights of passage , your dad taking you to the hardware store or gun store to buy your first license

well like so many other things now we are just old and that comradery is missing

I guess that is why we are here on t-man it might be the last place for hunting comradery

my son turned 18 to day he went to a gun shop about 20 miles away was looking at guns , he almost bought another one then he said to himself I already have a better 12ga I will save my money for something I want more like the glock 19 he is eying for action pistol

so after dinner he wanted to go to the local gun shop and buy some ammo not that he hasn't been there a few dozen times before and they know him by name when he walks in , but this was his time to buy ammo by himself . he got some of his favorite pheasant shells.

I had done about everything by 18 so there wasn't much left , my 18th I went and got a card so I could rent movies at the movie rental place oddly they carded and the liquor store next door didn't

I had also been living away from home 3 months before I turned 18

it is handy to buy the license online and answer all the questions then just print it off. seems I need to buy my license the night before I am going fishing lately I just get the conservation patrons license it is the everything license in WI

I love WI's system. Dont even have to print off or carry your phone. Its all linked to our drivers license now.

unless your on lake Michigan , Superior or the Mississippi

and you are supposed to print kill tags yet ,

the reality is even a couple miles out of town the warden sighs and starts scanning your DL or go wild card and struggles for signal.

Pa guys if you order your license online check where it comes from I was surprised that Pa outsourced the license work to Kansas. probably a company in Pa. that could have done the license thing

Nope, no need for tags at al anymore. They changed that a couple years ago. Deer Harvest FAQ

I'm probably in the minority on this but I miss back tags.