Hadn't seen the Dept.'s reaction. As much as I don't agree that this is a good argument for going back to pushing paper across desks, I think it's an excellent argument for a paper form that can be filled out (with fees collected) at times when the system is down. Retailers could mail in carbon copies to WDFW for manual data entry when the system is back online. A system under maintenance should never prevent citizens from accessing government services. Pain is one thing; denial of service is quite another.

I'm also not sure it's a good thing that they turned the whole thing into a free-for-all in the meantime. Absent any other means to sell licenses, I guess they don't have much choice, but the potential, lost revenue (especially from out-of-state anglers, who would comprise most of the people buying licenses this time of year) and the "bending of rules" that could occur during this period make it a real bummer.