It’s a Dadgum joke. I’ve never thought it to be legal honestly, and I’m sure the right court case by the right person could fight it and win. It’s still illegal to hunt by aid of bait, unless of course, you pay. Then they grant permission.
I too have questioned the legality of it if someone or a hunter rights organization wanted to spend the money to fight it. The first angle I would attack the baiting "privilege" fee is on the grounds that it violates the 2014 "Sportsperson's Bill of Rights" amendment to the Alabama constitution. The prior version of this amendment enacted in 1996 said that our right to hunt and fish was subject to "law and regulations." The new amendment states that: "The people have a right to hunt, fish, and harvest wildlife, including by the use of traditional methods, subject to reasonable regulations, to promote wildlife conservation and management, and to preserve the future of hunting and fishing.
The state is allowed to enact regulations which limit our right to hunt, but those regulations must be "reasonable" and tied to a purpose of wildlife conservation/management and hunting preservation.
If the legislature and/or ADCNR want to ban hunting over bait (which they currently do) on wildlife conservation grounds by saying it isn't fair chase, would be detrimental to the population, spreads disease, etc, they have every right to. But to then allow hunting by the very method they already consider detrimental under the condition of paying a "privilege" fee is completely arbitrary and unreasonable. Same for the feral hog night hunting privilege fee. If a hunting method is considered detrimental, there is no amount of money one can pay to magically make it no longer detrimental. If virtually anyone willing to pay the fee can obtain one with no additional limitations, then the state has admitted that there is no reasonable and valid purpose to prevent hunters from using this method.
If more revenue is needed, then use the legal avenues available to increase hunting license fees. But you can't constitutionally ban a hunting method and then allow it as a "privilege" if you are willing to pay more to do it.
As a lifetime license holder for nearly 25 years who was promised I would never need to pay for license fees again, I also think the new method of converting individual hunting methods to "privileges" requiring additional fees not covered by licenses is highly questionable and unconstitutional.
Anyone ok with the state piecemeal converting your hunting rights into individual privileges better also be ok with a future where you pay an extra privilege fee for each individual buck you shoot, the ability to purchase "bonus" privilege bucks, county by county individual fees, doe privilege fees, scope privilege fees, extended season privilege fees, taxidermy privilege fees, species by species privilege fees/tags, food plot privilege fees, etc. The list is endless once you accept that your hunting license no longer covers all legal methods of hunting. Anytime they want more revenue (which is always), they will simply make ordinary hunting methods illegal and make you pay for the extra privilege to do illegal things.
