Any weird experiences with game wardens?

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Anyone ever had any just act like douches for no reason?

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Yes. I've had both. Two were just unreasonably rude. Both while fishing. I get people have bad days at work.

I’ve described a curious case that lasted for over a year with a friend of mine out of Galax Va.

It involved me for just a moment but everyone is pissed at this game warden.

Will search for it.




ETA


I cannot find it but I will try to summarize it like this;


In 2013, we went to my friend’s cabin in Galax. We paddle down the new river without lifejackets, and we’re fishing without licenses. At the end of our float trip, we saw a Chevy Tahoe, unmarked skid, right beside the trucks that we had staged at the end of our takeout. it was a game warden and he was very very cool at the beginning. Said he would have to write tickets.

He said hey guys, I’d like to see your fishing licenses and your lifejackets. We said we didn’t have any of that. We admitted it. He looked at my friend, who was the land owner of the spot we launched from, and said hey, you’re my neighbor Jon.

Jon answered yes that’s right I am. He said I remember you because you would not let my son play paintball war with you and your friends back in college. Jon said yes your son was really young and we didn’t want to hurt them plus we did not have an extra gun or facemask.

He said “yeah remember that I also remember shooting some great bucks on your land at one time. “

Jon said yes I remember all that as well.

Game warden says man my boss is going to be so happy with me after I write these eight tickets. Guys remember this will affect your out-of-state driver license if you don’t pay these Virginia wildlife tickets off.


A year later, Jon tells me that he has a man that watches his land and allows him to hunt on it.

He only lets him hunt if he is doing things by the book. The game warden often drops in on John’s land to see this new hunter and says that he is not allowed to Bait for corn. The land caretaker says it’s not. Hannah is dropping the corn in for six more months. Every time the caretaker is stopped on the property and the game board says I’m gonna get you for putting corn on the ground. The caretaker says do whatever you have to do, but it’s not me and leave me the frick alone.

The game warden sits in his truck for 20 minutes and comes out with a book full of tickets for 20 different violations. It goes to court and Jon is asked to appear as a witness as well since he is the landowner. The judge looks at Jon and says Jon, this is an awful lot of tickets for what started out as the game warden seeing that your caretaker was baiting. Jon agrees that it has a longer history than just would’ve appears to be alleged baiting. The judge then asks the story of why this happens. Jon states that the game warden is angry because his son was not allowed to play paintball war and subsequently wrote eight tickets which he was allowed to do but it’s still a fact. The judge then looks at the game warden and asks, is this all true? The game warden says yes it is. The judge then tells the land caretaker he is allowed to go to Jon, thank you for your time. All charges dropped for caretaker.


Because the game warden overzealous and possibly jealous and tells him and the DA to please join him for a chat after court. I personally loved hearing about this, and I’m glad that he was reprimanded for his childish behavior because his son could not play paintball war with us.

Yes, a few years back, tried to take our ducks from the blind even though we were all legal. Buddies dad was a prong above him in the office and he made the call and we left with the ducks. No clue what happened after or why he did that.

Now if I see a parked fourwheeler hidden or hear walking behind my blinds I just yell "If you are LEO please just reveal yourself so we can get it over with, my glasses are currently foggy and I would hate for an accident to happen."

Actually had two occasions where they popped out from behind some trees but were cool about it, just checked stamps and licenses, etc.

My local green jeans won 3 golds and silver in 84. Might not be weird, but it sure af ain't normal super nice, like probably too nice for the occupation.

When my daughter was small, maybe 3 she and I were sitting in the dock fishing. This was on Pickwick Lake TN right off the mouth of Yellow creek which is one of the busiest areas on the entire lake and may be of the entire river.
Also, it was 4th of July weekend and there were hundreds of boats running around.

A boat with 2 wardens that were in the middle of the lake (literally a half mile from the dock) saw that my daughter and I were fishing and came to the dock and asked if I had a fishing license.
I did and actually had a lifetime license. I told them such but it was in the house.
They made me take my daughter up to the house and get my license so they could see.
After they looked at it they told me to have a good day.

I asked if it was necessary to check my fishing license on the busiest day of the year? The just looked at me dumbfounded.

Was coming into Venice from offshore and had one stop me right at the entrance to red pass. Pretty much forced me to stop (came at me head on) at the absolute shallowest part that’s maybe 1.5ft deep. Not normally a problem coming in on step but when you stop in a 35ft boat you need a litttttle more depth than that lol. Luckily was able to trim up and putt Around til it got a little deeper after they checked boat.

Thing that throws me off is pretty much everyone around there knows that it’s shallow there, I’d assume especially green jeans. Then he was a prick about the whole situation. He had a younger guy with him that was cool and pretty much gave off the “sorry he is being a dick vibe” but the whole thing rubbed me the wrong way. Plenty of better places to pull someone over than right at the entrance of a shallow pass.

Wish they would focus more on the thousands of “duck hunters” that flood the area with their pimped out gator tails, 1000000 lumen LED bars/accent lights and a death wish.

Other than that I have no issues with them

Had one stop by our camp in NWLA last weekend around lunch time. He's one of the ones on LA Law. He was nice enough and didn't even ask for licenses I guess because we weren't hunting. But you could tell his small talk was kind of snooping.

This is the same guy who gave one of our members a ticket a few years ago for "abandoning a deer"

The guy killed a doe in the morning and went on an afternoon hunt. Warden came to the camp while no one was there, and the deer was in the ice chest in the back of the guy's truck. Warden said he needed to have a possession tag on the ice chest. Our guy took it to court, and it was thrown out. We don't typically lock our trucks at the camp and the warden went through everyone's trucks and unloaded all the pistols he found.

Some other members of our club got a ticket for loitering when they pulled over on the side of the road hooping for the dogs to come out a few years ago in the afternoon from the same warden.

Growing up the one we had by us was cool. He knew everyone and if he stopped you it was to short the shite for a little bit and ask how you did. You had to be doing something really dumb for him to write a ticket. He retired around 2000 and got some you guys. They were pricks and would always look for anything to write a ticket all the time.

Not the same guys but was at the boat blessing and didn't have enough life jackets in the boat. They were counting and a loud boat passed on the other side of them. When they turned I threw a few back into the pile and got lucky, had the perfect amount that was the 2nd of 3 times they stopped us that day. They acted like they didn't remember stopping us the 1st or 2nd time .

All of my interactions with W&F agents have been friendly. Had one lady agent waiting at the dock inspecting licenses, registration, gear and ice chests when I pulled in after a rough day where I didn’t catch a single keeper. She posed for pictures with my empty ice chest and I texted the pics to my buddies. She was a good sport.

Not my deal but a childhood buddy and his dad got in a heap of trouble in E. TX about a decade ago.

They were squirrel hunting on family land on opening day. A man rolls up on a quad and approaches them. Buddy and his dad decide to make a citizens arrest of the fellow for trespassing and hold him at gunpoint with their .22's.

Turns out the fellow was a plain clothes game warden but even after identifying himself they continue to hold him at gunpoint and call the cops themselves to continue the citizens arrest (like many here, they also took issue with GWs rolling around on private property at will).

Well the warden I guess has a radio or something and sends out an SOS or officer in distress or whatever. I'm told every sheriff, police, trooper, park ranger, texas ranger, dog catcher, security guard, et al within 50 miles shows up on their little dirt road.

As you might guess this isn't going to end that great for son and dad. They get arrested of course. Make the local news. Spend a year to two in the courts attempting to challenge the ability of a GW to enter private property willy-nilly. The dad has to sell house to pay legal, becomes a felon, loses his firearm rights. Son fairs better. Criminal record, no felony. Has to write an apology and read it out in court in front of a bunch of GWs (bit odd but thats what I was told). Oh and I think the dad was holding an elected position at the time that he lost.