I'm not debating that they told you that, but I would bet a lot of money that the increase is nowhere near that. Maybe I would lose the bet, but I think they're messing with you. When I called Helena, the answer was "slightly above last year."
I have the license sales numbers from 2011 to 2021. Resident Deer A totals in 2011 were 148,941. This includes all of the Sportsman Combos that could also have a Deer A tag, plus Deer A only purchases.
In 2021, that same resident total for Deer A was 159,816. That's an increase of 10,875 over ten years. I would seriously doubt that the increase for the one season of 2022 was 4x what the increase was in an entire decade. I could be wrong, but I think someone is jerking your chain.