VA has some very good game wardens that exercise great judgement and are truely happy to see people enjoying the outdoors responsibly.

We also have some young gun hot shots who think they are members of the LAPD SWAT. There was a ticket written near Maidens landing last year to a man in a canoe by himself paddling. Naturally, as he was by himself, he was sitting in the front of the boat, turned backwards to put himself more in the middle. The game warden.... standing at the take out.... noticed his registration sticker (required for any sort of motor... including electric trolling motors) was on the back of the boat (which was really the bow... but looked like the stern because the boat was reversed.... and remember... it wasn't under power). The ticket was written for not having the boat registration tag on the front 1/3 of the boat. Even though it was, and even though a tag was not required in this situation. It would be like being written a ticket for not having a license plate on a rusted junk car you were towing on a flat bed trailer.

I've seen them write parking tickets to women in front of church on sunday mornings who were dropping off their elderly fathers. Written tickets to people for wearing the 'wrong shade' of blaze orange. A Coastie wrote my father and his fishing buddy a warning ticket because he 'didn't like the style' of their USCG CLASS I PFDs!!!

The point of all this is that game laws in VA are largely up to the discretion of the warden. If a warden wanted to roast your buddy for deer hunting out of season, without orange, with an innappropriate firearm... he could do it. It would take brass balls and a retarded sense of logic.... but it could be done. If you killed a deer... it wouldn't take much to determine which weapon was used.... but I've seen some twisted logic applied... and while justice has ALWAYS in every case I listed above prevailed (one of those wardens was reassigned and another written a formal repremand for gross poor judgement), it is still a major pain in the butt.

By the letter of the law.. you are totally legal by the way. With a bow in hand... you can tell the game warden you are hunting whatever is in season... all your buddy has to do is say he is hunting small game. Nuff said.