PARSONS – Folks were lined up to purchase their electronic hunting and fishing licenses at the Tucker County Clerk’s office recently. In fact, the first day of sales for that office showed more than $1,000 in licenses.
Sherry Simmons, Tucker County Clerk, said there was a slight glitch in printing the licenses at first, but once that was fixed, the system worked perfectly.
“It took about an hour, but we were fine come 9 a.m.,” Simmons said. “This system is much easier. The part I like most of all is that the license can be reprinted up to 10 times a year. If an individual loses their license we can reprint it. That is the best part of the system.”
Simmons said the process to sign up requires a valid W.Va. Driver’s License or state I.D., and payment can be made by cash or check. She said it takes about five minutes to sign up and receive the license. The hours at the Tucker County Clerk’s Office are 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Chris Ryan, W.Va. DNR Supervisor of Game Management Services, said the new system is up and working well.
“It is going extremely well,” Ryan said. “We are extremely happy with the new system and with the job they are doing for us.”
Ryan said there used to be two computer systems and a paper system, and they have all been combined into one system.
“We had the Go Wild system which is run by the state DNR and our point of sale agents and we also sold a paper license at some of our smaller vendors,” Ryan said. “So we had three different systems going on at once and they were not integrated at all.”
Ryan said with the new system, there is 182 point of sale places across the state where hunters and anglers can go to get their licenses.
“Starting April 1, we are going to an electronic game checking system,” Ryan said. “As of the end of the Jan. 5, we had 7,248 transactions on the new system and sold 46,606 items for a total of $334,576.55.”
Ryan said those needing help can go to their local point of sale outlet or online at www.wvhunt.com
