• Courtesy
• Landis Menard

Landis Menard's social media pages are filled with images of his hunting and fishing conquests: seven-point bucks, turkeys and trout.

But his latest trophy can fit in his wallet. The Fairfield resident is the 2022 winner of the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department's lifetime hunting and fishing license lottery. That means the 25-year-old Vermonter won't have to pay for the privilege anymore.

"My friends think I have a horseshoe hidden somewhere," he joked.

Vermonters can pay $2 to enter the license lottery as many times as they want. Menard said he gave it a shot after "just barely" noticing the lottery option at the bottom of his annual hunting permit application. He entered nine times; one of his tickets was pulled from among 18,782 entries, which raised about $37,500 for Fish & Wildlife.

Menard described himself as an avid outdoorsman. He shot his first deer when he was just 7 years old, and he mostly eats meat and fish that he's caught himself. 

Menard still lives and works on his family's organic dairy farm in Fairfield, which he plans to take over one day. He does a lot of his hunting right on the farm, where his family also has a maple syrup operation.

While he enjoys the solitude of being alone in the woods, he said, he especially appreciates afternoons spent hunting with his father, brother or cousins. His favorite prey? White-tailed deer.

Menard typically spends $47 for his combined hunting and fishing license and an additional $170 for permits that allow him to carry an archer's bow and hunt waterfowl. Those extra permits aren't covered by the lifetime award, but if Menard lives a long and healthy life, he'll save thousands of dollars on licensing fees.

Menard has no plans to leave Vermont, and his lottery win only cemented that resolution. As he put it, "I'll be hunting forever."