E ENElZAL
June 10, 1960
Honorable H. D. Dodgen
Executive Secretary
Game & Fish Commission
Austin, Texas Opinion No. WW - 846
Be: Under the provisions of
Article hO75b, V.A.C.S.,
as amended, is the Game
and Fish Commission re-
quired to issue a Commercial
Bay-Bait Shrimp Boat license
to any person who, for a
valid reason, was unable or
failed to make application
during the months of January
& February?
Dear Mr. Dodgen:
You requested the opinion of this Department in a letter in which
two question6 were posed:
"(1) Is the Game and Fish Commission required
to issue Bay-Bait Shrimp Boat licenses to persons
requesting to buy said licenses prior to the months
of January and February who failed to make the re-
quired remittance and renew the application during
the months of January and February?
"(2) Is the Game and Fish Commission required
to issue a Commercial Bay-Bait Shrimp Boat license to
any person who, for valid reason, was unable to or
failed to make application during the months of
January and February?"
House Bill 12, Chapter 187, Acts of the 56th Legislature, Regular
Session, 1959, now found in Vernon's Annotated Civil Statutes of Texas as
Article 4075b, provides in part as follows:
Honorable H. D. Dodgen, Page 2. (ww - 846)
"Sec. 5. It shall be unlawful for any Commercial
Bay-Bait Shrimp Boat to be used for the purpose of
taking or catching, or assisting in taking or catching,
shrimp from the inside waters of Texas, without the
owner thereof having first procured a license, to be
known as a Commercial Bay-Bait Shrimp Boat License,
from the Commission privileging such boat to be so used
within the inside waters of Texas. The fee for a Com-
mercial Bay-Bait Shrimp Boat License shall be Thirty Dol-
lars ($3X?)and such License shall be issued for a period
of one (1) year and shall expire March 1st of the year
following the date of issuance, and shall be secured
from and issued by the Commission only during the months
of January and February of each year; the License shall
include the right to use, operate and tow within the in-
side waters of this State all shrimp trawls with which
said boat is equipped, the use of which is not otherwise
prohibited by Law, without the payment of any additional
trawl license whatsoever, and said boat shall not be
required to also have a "Commercial Fishing Boat License"
as provided by Section 3 of Chapter 68 of the Acts of the
Fifty-first Legislature of Texas, Regular Session, 1949,
or other Statutes of this State; but the captain and each
member of the crew of said boat shall be required to have
a Commercial Fisherman's License issued by the Commission,
and said boat shall be required to be licensed as a Commer-
cial Gulf Shrimp Boat in order to operate \