I heard this exact scenerio on the radio the other day. I was listening to the normal chatter on Saturday when I hear a guy name Darren radio his buddy Barry that he shot a button buck. Barry asked him if he was going to tag it and Darren said, yeah we should. Barry then said he'd be down to put his tag on it. So Darren illegally shot a deer and Barry covered it up with his tag. Had I known their location I would have turned them in.
How do you know that Darren illegally shot this deer? Do you know for sure that he didn't have a tag in his pocket? Assuming that button bucks can be taken in your state, if Darren had a vailid tag, he had every right to shoot that deer. Now when Barry put his tag on it the illegal act would have occured, but you don't know for sure from this radio conversation that Darren DIDN'T have a tag to begin with. This is my point with people turning in others. There are MANY assumptions usually made. I am sure for every ONE real violation, there are numerous wild goose chases that a conservation officer makes because of assumptions that callers make. At the same time MORE serious offenses will probably occur because there are NOT enough officers out patrolling.