Field Notes
by DAVE PAYNE SR.

With its new, attractive line of licenses announced Friday, the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources is finally acknowledging that paper can in fact be destroyed. 
The new licenses are made like credit cards and in a few years, sportsmen will be able to simply swipe them instead of filling out long applications for licenses and stamps. They also feature colorful wildlife backgrounds.
Division Director Ed Hamrick said the new West Virginia licenses are the best-looking in the country. He may be right. They are gorgeous.
But then again, when you've been carrying the same license for years that's been cut out of a sheet of cardboard, anything will leave you dazzled. 
My license is held together by a prayer and with packing tape.
I got my lifetime hunting, fishing and trapping license with trout stamp in 1998. For almost five years, that card has been in my back pocket. I've been through three wallets since then, but still keep the same tattered card. 
It's rough to be in my wallet. I fall in creeks and once fell off a rock cliff. 
 I forget to take my wallet out of my pants and my license goes on a trip through the washer and dryer. Only a  covering of clear packing tape has kept it from disintegrating into pocket lint.
But it wasn't very attractive when I got it either-  just a white card with my personal information banged out from a division typewriter. For decoration, there is some drab wildlife clip art in the corners.
One corner has what I think is a  brook trout and another has flying geese. Another corner has a buck whose tail, by some freak of nature, is larger than his eight-point rack.
 In the top right corner, there is a picture of an animal which is either a turtle standing on its hind legs or a squirrel. I'm not sure.
On the back of my license is my signature, which over the years has smeared to read "Daniel Payne." 
Even though I have a lifetime license, I still have to show my yellow cardboard hunters' education certificate when I buy stamps for doe hunting, etc. 
That card is even more tattered.
I've had it since July 19, 1990. That's half my life ago.
Lifetime-license holders will now have a choice between five colorful backgrounds. Sorry, no pictures of squirrels which look like biped turtles.
The new lifetime licenses offer a photo of a black bear, a 10-point buck at full alert, a turkey strutting his stuff or paintings of a largemouth bass cruising through brush for prey or a brook trout holding steady behind a rock waiting for a fly to float by overhead. A sample of all five images is available at www.dnr.state.wv.us/lifetime.htm.
The new licenses will be issued after the first of the year and current license holders can upgrade for $5 after calling 558-2758 to order it. I've ordered mine already.
I picked the brook trout. Sometime, I'm sure, I'll be fishing the headwaters of some limestone stream at 4,000 feet and realize I've driven four hours just to slap a yellow stonefly on the water over and over to laughing trout. At least then I can stare at my license to remember what a brook trout looks like.
One should stand in awe and gawk at it. It is the hunting license of the future.
It's all part of a futuristic licensing program the division plans to implement in a few years. All licenses, not just lifetime, will someday look like credit cards, said Hoy Murphy, public communications officer. 
There will be no more long forms to fill out and retailers won't have to keep piles of license stamps locked away. Sportsmen simply show up, swipe their licenses and get a printout of whatever additional license they want. 
Implementing the futuristic program will cost the division several million dollars, but in a few years should pay for itself, Murphy said. Instead of waiting three months to collect license fees from retailers, the division will be able to collect the money at the point of sale and earn interest in the meantime.
I asked him about the yellow hunter education card of the future. There isn't one.
"Oh, you'll still need to carry that with you," he said.
I'm sure that crumbling card will look nice with my new brook trout license.
Dave Payne Sr. can be reached via email at dpayne@newsandsentinel.com.