I was following a poorly hit deer (not mine) one bow season and it got dark. We went back to the truck and left our bows, got some lights and continued to look for the deer. We never found the deer and the blood trail ended. We were on hands and knees looking some more and I could hear someone coming and saw some lights. 2 Game Wardens came upon the scene and checked our licenses and told us that they were driving by and noticed the truck still parked at the edge of a hunting spot so they decided to check. They told us we would have been ticketed if we still had a bow with us. They asked if we had permission to hunt the private land and we did. They then asked if we had our name on the stands which we also said we did. We did everything right except for the bad shot on the deer. The infraction would mean a 3 year loss of license plus a hefty fine for hunting with a light and killing a deer after legal hunting hours. There wasn't much gray in what they told us. Had we found the deer alive I would have found a way to quietly complete the retrieval without a hunting weapon. That decision to put the bows away, have permission to hunt with our names on the standwas the right thing to do and it saved us getting into big trouble.