vtbuckrulrss & gulfcoasthunter
I am going to tell you like it is coming from a game wardens point of view. If I find someone breaking the law? There hunt has come to an end until after things are cleared up. If you are not wearing hunter orange I am going to tell you to put it on without writting you a ticket. If you do not have the required hunter orange clothing with you? You will get a ticket and you are done hunting until you put some on. If I do catch you breaking the law? You better believe I am going to ask to see your hunting license. You would be suprised at how many people are hunting without a hunting license.
gulfcoasthunter
I can not comment as to why the game warden made you walk back to his truck to check your license??? You could have a jealous neighbor, co-worker or anti-hunter talking bad about you behind your back? I would say if a warden knows where 6 out of 8 of your stands are, you or someone else on that property is being watched.

Unfortunately I must say that this has all to often been the case here in Alabama as well. Get a ticket here and you are guilty. Period! Try to fight it even if you are in the right and you will still lose. Why? Cause the courts and judges don't care. Its a money making racket and the wardens are the cash generators. I recognize the need for game wardens and respect the work that the honest ones are trying to achieve but here in my area of Alabama we have had so many rotten apples it has dragged the general view of Game Wardens almost down to the level of child pornographers.
There have been so many cases of abuse of power. Mulitple instances where wardens have framed people they didn't like or had some personal agenda against. I know personally of one case locally where a game warden got drunk at a party and got his a$$ kicked for getting fresh with a guys girlfriend. Two weeks later the same game warden came across the truck of the guy who whipped his butt at a local boat landing. The guy was down river in his boat running his trot lines. The warden tossed a dead turkey carcass in the back of the guys truck and waited for the guy to return. When he got back to the landing the warden wrote him up for turkey hunting out of season. I know you are probably thinking, "aw come on Todd things like that are isolated cases and not the norm." Well I wish you were right. I could quote you case after case. Confiscated guns that mysteriously disappeared by the time they were supposed to be returned to the owners. Game wardens who are supposed to be catching night hunters actually doing the night hunting. (That last one goes on a lot.) I personally saw a guy written up for fishing without a license once in what was essentially an oblong mudhole in the ditch of the highway. He was just checking out another friends new rod and reel and cast it up the ditch a few times. There was no fish in this thing then or ever! It was a drainage ditch attached to no body of water. A game warden passing by pulled over checked all of us for fishing licenses (even though only one of us was holding a rod and reel) and wrote that poor guy a ticket. Think he got it thrown out of court? Think again. Like I said the courts and judges don't care here. The wardens set em up and they knock em down. Its a money racket pure and simple.
Heck I could (if any of you are interested) relate a case to you in which a local game warden in conjunction with a local cop framed a poor boy for possession of a silencer and got him sent to prison for 3 years. Why did they do it? The cop and the boy who went to prison were both courting the same girl and the cop was losing her to the other boy. So he enlisted the help of one of our fine upstanding local game wardens to help plant and bust the boy for possession of a silencer. They got that guy sent to prison for 3 years over a woman. The state eventually reassigned both of those gentlemen to other areas for their own safety as this episode had stirred up the locals pretty bad.
Sorry for the long rant. Just be glad if you have good game wardens in your area. Getting checked in your tree stand and not even getting a ticket. Ha, count yourself lucky. If that had been an Alabama game warden he would have probably dragged the body of a dead hobo under your tree and framed you for murder. That is, if your wife is hot and he thought he had a shot at her while you were in prison. Count your blessings.

I can't believe that most of you guys have no problem with a game warden coming up to your stand in the woods to check you.
It would make me extremely mad!
What if he cost you the Buck of a lifetime ?
Would you guys be so understanding then ? Be honest!
I have a friend that would probably bury someone in the woods for costing him a big buck.
JMO, they should stay the hell out of the woods and check you when you come out.
Maybe cops should be allowed to walk into your homes anytime they want to see if you're smoking crack.


Sag.

I have to agree with Sag. By being in the act of hunting we can be presumed guilty of breaking a law? I assume everyone on this board has a mirror in their house. Now the police can come into your house unannounced and search at will with no warrant because you may be doing cocaine, why else would you have so many mirrors around. Can the highway patrol pull you over for driving the speed limit and going straight down the highway, you are driving so you can be presumed to be breaking some sort of traffic law. How many of you would cry foul on that yet welcome it from the Game and Fish. It is a double standard and I don't like it. BTW, the local Game Warden is a friend of mine, we hunt, trap and fish together. I have nothing against them personally and I don't have a problem with them checking me. I have a problem with being harrassed without probable cause.

Sagittarius & mez
I do not think you are getting my point. Several other officers & myself cover an area that is over 1-million acres of wilderness & public land so I may not fully understand your point as well? We can not cover all of this area on foot or horseback so we fly over most of it. If we see a camp that for some reason we do not like? We saddle up & ride into that camp. There are always a few wardens on the ground in this wilderness riding around checking licenses & making sure the camps are kept clean. If game wardens are only allowed to stay in there trucks & wait for you to come back to your truck would that not encourage more people to poach? I do not think any hunter should be harassed. If you are ever harassed by any game warden contact the state director for your DNR. The director will keep a record of complaints about his officers. If you are the only person that complains about that officer do not expect anything to happen to him? If there are several complains about the same officer there will be action taken. They usually move the person to a new region of the state & keep a file on him. If the same problems follow him to his new home he will be taken out of the law enforcement division.

He is just doing his job, sure it got in your way but that happens. And you were doing something that is against the law so you should be counting your lucky stars.

More than likely you won't be breaking too many laws getting into your truck. Where else would they find offenders?

Maybe they should!! Fine by me. I've got nothing to hide. Maybe it would clean up the neighborhoods a little. It's ok to do crack as long as it's in your house?

I can't believe the amount of people that have this attitude towards wardens. I like em. Wish there was one every square mile. They're out there protecting my sport.

Wolf Killer,

My reply was not aimed at you.
But let's reverse roles for a second if you don't mind.
If you were the hunter and I was a game warden, how would you feel if I came into the woods to check you and cost you the opportunity at a big buck by spooking him ?
If you hear me fire a shot in the woods, I have no problem with you coming in then to check me as I will have a deer down and my hunt is complete.
You may argue that I might be using a bow to poach deer and you can't hear it.
Poachers are too damn lazy to shoot deer with a bow and trail them after the shot.

Ny Bowhunter,

If you ever meet up with a cop with an attitude and he bitch slaps you, slams his night stick upside your head, kills a member of your family for what he imagines a threatening move on yours or their part, after freely entering your home without cause, your views would change considerably.
Hitler's special police had that kind of power in Nazi Germany.

Never have taken an illegal drug in my life in case you're wondering.


Sag.

I think game wardens have the right to come walking in to your stand any time they want. Sure, he could be costing you the chance at a big buck, but he is doing his job. If we make the game wardens just sit at your truck and wait for you to come out, we are making it easier for poachers, and that defeats the purpose of having game wardens. However, I do believe that game wardens can cross the line. For example, those stories that Todd posted about the game wardens in Alabama are outrageous. Game wardens like that shouldn't be in the woods. But as far as a game warden walking in to my stand and making me get down to check my license, I have no problem with it.

From game wardens to Hitler............ very interesting!!