recreationstate

Called Up Mid-Season? The Permit Is Reinstated, and the Next One Is Cheap

A Missouri resident mobilised on full-time active duty in the Guard or Reserve hunts, fishes and traps on a low-cost permit for twelve months afterwards — and a permit you could not use because you were called away is reinstated free on your return.

Verified August 23, 2026

What this benefit is

What it's worth: A low-cost small game, fishing and trapping permit, plus free reinstatement of a permit lost to a call-up

The department publishes the entitlement but not the price of the low-cost permit on this page, so we do not quote a figure that would be wrong the moment the schedule changes.
The reinstatement is worth whatever the unusable permit cost, which depends on what you bought.

Who is entitled to it

You are the servicemember.
Your home is in Missouri.

Not sure whether that describes you?

Answer a few questions about this benefit specifically — we only ask what this one actually depends on, and we stop as soon as we know.

How to claim it

Deadline: The low-cost permit route runs while mobilised and for twelve months afterwards

1Carry your orders. Everything in this record turns on documentary proof of the mobilisation, not on a rating or a discharge.
2For the low-cost permit: the department states a Missouri resident who is currently, or has in the previous twelve months been, mobilised and serving on full-time active military duty in the National Guard in Federal status or in the Reserve forces may hunt small game, fish and trap on a low-cost permit.
3For the reinstatement: if you bought a Missouri hunting, fishing or trapping permit and then could not use it for the full valid season because you were called to military duty out of state, ask for a free reinstatement of the permit privilege on your return.
4Ask before the twelve months are up. The department words the low-cost route as a rolling twelve-month window after mobilisation, so a member who waits two years has waited too long.
5If your family is stationed here rather than mobilised from here, ask about the resident-price route instead — active duty military and their families stationed in Missouri qualify for resident permits, as do resident active duty military and their immediate family stationed out of state.
6Check separately whether the permit-free route for a 60% service-related disability, former prisoner of war status or a Warrior Transition assignment fits you better. That one costs nothing at all.

File with: The Missouri Department of Conservation, or any permit vendor
Documents you will need: dd214
Annual: Permits run on the department’s permit year; the twelve-month mobilisation window is what governs eligibility.

CorrectionThe reinstatement is the part almost nobody claims, because it looks like a favour rather than a published entitlement. It is on the department’s own veteran benefits page, in terms.

Worth knowingThe mobilisation route is about service, not disability. A member with no rating at all is inside it, which is the opposite of how most recreation benefits in this corpus are built.

Known gapThe department does not publish the price of the low-cost permit, the form to use for reinstatement, or the proof it wants, and the Wildlife Code section that would settle it could not be read: the Secretary of State host that publishes the Code of State Regulations sat on a Cloudflare interstitial that never cleared. Ask a department regional office before relying on the detail.

Sources

authority · published policyMissouri Department of Conservation — Veteran Benefits
operating · published policyMissouri Department of Conservation — Permit Exemptions

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