Game warden checks?

I have never been checked while hunting, ever. Over 30 years deer hunting, 25 years upland hunting, 20 years waterfowl hunting, and 15 years spring turkey hunting. Literally, not once.

And until last April, I also never been checked while fishing either. That's also 25 years. Finally ran into a pair of COs on the water last spring while panfishing.
 
Had one waiting for us in ND 3 years ago as we trekked out of a WPA grouse hunting…could see him a mile away where we were parked…young guy, 27? 28?. Shooting an auto, showed him it was plugged, showed him my non-tox, showed him my 3 grouse…buddy did the same. Don’t recall if licenses were checked. Told him there’d be gift card waiting at the fru-fru coffee/pastry place in our little town 15 miles away. He got it a day later, they said. Did it for a cop in that town…I stopped him, wanted to chat…nice folks. Glad there’s people who want to be LEO….👍
 
Every experience I have had over the years has been enjoyable, except one and I was in the wrong :). Funny how that worked!
 
I was checked a few years ago here in Colorado and the Warden commented on what a beautiful gun I had. I shoot A Benelli Silver Montefeltro in 12 ga, he checked to make sure my plug was in and all was good. Never been checked in 30 years of hunting Nebraska.
 
We have a property we put into the IHAP program for 3 years. The DNR was supposed to burn it but never did so we took it out. The place was 1/3 CRP 1/2 corn field and the rest pond and lake shore. Duck hunters liked it, so did deer hunters.

Anyway the next door person, farm is all CRP, didn’t really like anyone and everyone being able to hunt just across their fence, the ducks especially, and deer. I have always known they hunted deer there and sometimes asked.

Part of the IHAP deal is no vehicles can be on it. I don’t really hunt other than pheasants so opening day I hunted it with four friends. At 70 I was the youngest. Not thinking I told the 90yo to take his truck down the corn field and post on the edge of the grass.

We hunt for maybe a half hour and here comes the DNR guy and I see the neighbor watching from his side. Well the DNR guy has kids in sports with my grandkids and we have gotten to know each other pretty well, but he didn’t know this property was ours.

He looked pretty sheepish when he saw me walk up, and had already called in to identify the property owner. I saw the humor in the whole deal but one of my friends kinda got irate. I confessed I had forgotten about the no driving deal and he said it’s kinda gray being I, as the property owner, told the guy to drive. The DNR guy was kinda embarrassed about the whole deal. He didn’t check licenses or equipment. Good thing because I imagine the old fella hasn’t bought a box of shells in 50 years, all reloads. Not steel.

Anyway we ended it with a reminder that driving wasn’t allowed and we are good friends to this day.

He drove up to the neighbor and judging by the arm waving that fella wasn’t happy. Oh well.
 
My game warden experience, and not one I'm proud of, was maybe 25 years ago with a group in SD, annual trip with a few friends and one guy had some relatives out near Wessington. We would typically go the same weekend annually and back then, the daily start time was Noon, and would reset to 10:00 after daylight savings would kick in. I don't recall the reasons why, but we moved our trip up a week and got into the field at 10:00 and had a lot of shooting and bagged several birds right away. We take a break after the first field and notice a truck pulling up and realize it's the CO. He gets out and explains to us the season doesn't open until Noon, writes each of us a ticket and takes all our birds. Boy did we feel stupid. I think we all pooled our money together and paid the fine right there on the spot, in cash. Total blunder and embarrassment. A bunch of guys in their 20's that were so excited to be out there we completely forgot about the Noon start time early in the season.
 
BirdDoggin said:
My game warden experience, and not one I'm proud of, was maybe 25 years ago with a group in SD, annual trip with a few friends and one guy had some relatives out near Wessington. We would typically go the same weekend annually and back then, the daily start time was Noon, and would reset to 10:00 after daylight savings would kick in. I don't recall the reasons why, but we moved our trip up a week and got into the field at 10:00 and had a lot of shooting and bagged several birds right away. We take a break after the first field and notice a truck pulling up and realize it's the CO. He gets out and explains to us the season doesn't open until Noon, writes each of us a ticket and takes all our birds. Boy did we feel stupid. I think we all pooled our money together and paid the fine right there on the spot, in cash. Total blunder and embarrassment. A bunch of guys in their 20's that were so excited to be out there we completely forgot about the Noon start time early in the season.
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Happens…
 
In my 50 years of hunting all my experiences have been positive except one. I was duck hunting on a refuge and was the only one there. I had my 12 year old lab who wasn’t in great shape but liked to go. Well sunset came and we walked out. I had decoys, blind bag, gun, so all my hands were full. My old girl always walked at heel and just liked to be out with me. I got to the parking lot and the federal warden came running up to me and got right in my face and started screaming do you have $500? I had worked for the USFWS for 3 summers on this refuge in college. I knew everybody but never saw this guy in my life.

He said all dogs need to be on a leash, and that is a 500 dollar fine. I found out later that wasn’t true. Probably a good rule if your dog chases deer. I tried to explain my dog was old and at heel the whole time, and my hands were full, only person here so no dog fights. I couldn’t even talk because he started yelling do you have 500 dollars. I was starting to get scared as he seemed totally unhinged and always had his hand on his pistol.

I said okay you are right, go ahead and write me a citation. I told him I didn’t have 500 dollars on me. He never checked my license, guns, or shells. I loaded up my stuff and old dog. He said well maybe a warning this time. I jumped in my truck and rolled down the window said thanks so much I will leash her next time. As I drove off I could hear him still yelling it was a $500 fine.

So about 2 month later the refuge manager wrote an article about the waterfowl hunting on this refuge in the local newspaper. In his story he said as he was walking to his blind in the morning and his dog got lost and was way ahead of him and took a wrong turn. I wanted to go to his office and start screaming at him, do you have $500 dollars? 😀
 
I been checked by wardens/sheriffs about 50 times. More fishing than hunting. Never seen a SD warden except at checkpoints. Only 1 time was the guy a jerk, that was on lake Okoboji out fishing, guy must have woke up on wrong side of bed. I do like chatting with them when I'm out hunting. Always ask them what they've seen on their route. Other day I called federal wildlife guy, he told me a secret path to access land they have, and I wasn't even asking about it, but he told me where some prairie chickens live!
 
I've hunted out of my home state (5 different times - never encountered a Game Warden in those 3 states).

In KS I've only been checked 5-7 times if I had to venture to guess -- all were positive except one.

15 -17 (time flies) or so yrs ago was when it happened - I was with my brother and 1 other guy in 2 separate trucks - we had deer permits - fully legal - we were out in western KS and driving to high spots on roads glassing various wiha and private we had permission on - could see 3-5 miles in places -- we had a game warden tail us about 1-2 miles away for about 15 -30 minutes -- I finally got annoyed and said the hell with it and I drove up to the guy - pulled off into the ditch - got out with my DL and hunting license and was kind of a smart ass and asked him to check me and everyone else with us so he would stop following us (I think a lot of my annoyance thinking about it was we witnessed 2 or 3 illegal if not more acts by locals and out of state people alike -- shooting from the road - driving in fields after deer - driving in WIHA, and no game warden to be found or care at that point even when called in) - -- Caught him by surprise haha - and I was late 20s or early 30 and my attitude was probably not the best. Anyways he looked at our permits/licenses and went on about his way and left us alone after that.

I think I posted about it on here somewhere after it happened.
 
I have been stopped once in Oregon by a US Fish and Wildlife Law Enforcement Officer when I was 14. The experience scarred me for life. We were my Dad and I were elk hunting, driving down a two track and I had 4 shells in the magazine, nothing in the chamber. He flipped out and started yelling at me, asked me if I was trying to kill someone, threatened me with a ticket. The guy unloaded my rifle and pushed it back into my chest. This was one of the few times that my Dad remained calm at a time like this. Come to find out it was legal to have shells in your magazine.

I was also stopped by US Fish and Wildlife Law Enforcement Officer in Colorado. I wash duck hunting with a friend over decoys. It was when there was a point system for ducks. A hen mallard or a pintail was worth 100 points and you couldn't exceed 100 points. These two Fed's came into our blind with a dog and let their dog search our gear and kept asking us where the hen mallard was... we didn't have one. Long story long, they were not nice folks.

I have also been stopped in Colorado by a State warden. He watched us for quite a while and then when we were wrapping up and back at the truck, he came up and checked us out., He was a super nice guy, we even gave him a cup of coffee from our thermos.

I have been stopped in Utah several times and have turned myself in one time when a second tom turkey stepped in behind a tom that I had a bead on. I killed both toms. All of the Utah folks that have checked me have been very professional. The guy who I called about the turkey drove 50 miles to meet me. He took one of the toms and let me off with a warning.
 
Bob Peters said:
…... Only 1 time was the guy a jerk, that was on lake Okoboji out fishing, guy must have woke up on wrong side of bed. …..
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I have known all the DNR enforcement folks in the lakes area for many years, they are pretty chill generally. I think during the summer they bring one or two in from other areas on the hot weekends to help out, probably not what they want to be doing.

To be fair Okoboji gets some real aholes fishing there, present company excluded of course. Some of them think they can do whatever they want, they are on vacation and “do you know who I am” sort of folks.

Then add the drunken pleasure boaters with the huge speed boats who think they can outrun the law and it is a tough job.
 
I live and hunt near the local F.W.A. so yeah, I've been checked multiple times. Once I forgot my wallet and the C.O. just laughed and said I didn't look much like a poacher anyway. All but one were pretty pleasant. Years ago we had a new one with a chip on his shoulder. I was basically just walking around in the river bottoms. Squirrel and dove season were in so I did have a shotgun but wasn't really hunting. This guy had just stopped me a few days before but was pretty docile about it then but this time he acted like I just killed someone. he was hiding waiting for me to come back to the truck, but I saw his car. He came screaming up sliding in the gravel, jumped out like he was going to draw on me. I layed my gun down and said something like what the hell man you just checked me a few days ago. He went through my tuck with a fine-toothed comb, even looked in my dog box. Come to find out he had pissed off some local guys, so they shot a bunch of deer and scattered them down that road. I heard latter that thing escalated. Someone planted a light out in the woods. Then they called him to report a poacher. Evidently, they were watching and when he got far enough away from him, they shot the hell out of his car. He was gone a few months latter.
 
Never been checked in SD, but several times in Kansas. I think I've related this story before. A Highway Patrol guy (ie, not a game warden) interrupted a hunt on some private, posted ground pretty early in the morning. It was primarily a permission check. We had permission; I even put up the signs for the landowner. But it wasn't in writing. At like 7:30 in the morning, he made me call the farmer so that he could be sure. Then he checked our licenses.

A couple years later a game warden was waiting when we walked out of my friend's place. There were like 6 of us, including a 1x/year guy who forgot that licenses were based on calendar years (that's since changed in Kansas). He got a ticket, and then the warden wrote him another ticket because his tags were allegedly out of date. As a farmer with lots of vehicles, he had simply, mistakenly, put vehicle X's sticker on vehicle Y.
 
Two years ago I waited for a warden in ND to
walk down to his truck, he was on a hill glassing duck hunters. Took 15 minutes…we chatted for 20 minutes, he didn’t ask for anything. I showed him some birds, asked him some questions. A week later he was waiting at my truck at a different spot, talked for 20 minutes…he didn’t ask for anything…I showed him some birds for the heck of it. He said locals are the violators..,the first chat we had a week earlier, he left me and checked some locals…one guy briskly approached him and confessed he didn’t have a license, and told the warden to write him a ticket. Anyhow, I got back home, googled the warden’s name, in order to send him a card of thanks. Learned he lost a 30 year old son to cancer a year earlier…was diagnosed soon after learning that his wife was pregnant with their first child. Hard to fathom, my buddy and I also sent the widow a card and a modest gift of $. Damn, damn, damn. ✝️🙏
 
At 16, duck hunting in Manitoba, nature called, set my loaded but broken open Citori on the hood of the vehicle and I ducked into the brush to dump mud, as Goose so eloquently states! Warden appears, threatens a ticket…didn’t do it. I fail to see the transgression…maybe he was trying to educate me. No biggy, just remembered that. 🍻
 
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