If you park at a trailhead, yes, you'll need a pass. It's good for a year.
If you can patiently sit still overlooking a non-pressured opening, you should be able to easily fill that tag. You might ask some landowners that have deer fencing around their gardens if you can hunt behind or on their property. The deer fencing is usually a dead giveaway that there would be no love lost if one of the garden raiders was removed from the local deer population.
Good luck!