Hunting in California: The requirements

October 9, 3:30 PMSF Hunting ExaminerJeff Banke

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DFG Student Manual 

To obtain a hunting license in California it is required to present to the sales agent a copy of a previous years hunting license, or a Hunter Education certificate.Hunter education certificates are issued to students who attend a hunter education class and successfully pass a test. The test comprises 100 questions, and the student is required to answer a minimum of 80 correctly in order to pass and obtain the Certificate of Completion. The California Department of Fish & Game require classes to be a minimum of 10 hours in duration, with the following exceptions:
1. If students are issued the training manual some time prior to the class, allowing them to have read the entire manual, classes may then be 8 hours in duration.
2. The DFG has worked with others to create online courses, which upon completion allow the student to attend a special 4 hour class.
3. Students can obtain a “Home Study set of manuals”, whereupon on completion of the workbook, they can attend a similar 4 hour class.
 

If a hunter wishes to hunt out of state, they will find that increasingly, more States are requiring presentation of the original Hunter Education certificate (see slide show). One of the most common problems for hunters arranging a hunt in Colorado, is not knowing that they need the Hunter Education certificate. Upon finding out that it is required, they end up scrambling around trying to locate a class to attend, finding that like themselves, many, if not most Hunter Education Instructors are actually hunters, and are in the field hunting, which of course limits the classes available to someone in this predicament.

Lack of preparation can often ruin a hunt!

Ignorance of the law or the requirements is probably the single biggest reason that many hunters each year get citations, both in California and out of State. It is the hunters responsibility whether hunting in CA or elsewhere to obtain a copy of the regulations for the game they wish to hunt, and read them.

In the case a student loses their certificate, a DFG office or the instructor from which the student took the class can issue a replacement certificate. However, Instructors are not required (although most do) to keep records, without which they would not have any way of confirming that a student had in fact successfully completed a course.