Accidentally broke law - need advice
11-13-2005, 08:04 AM
#41
Giant Nontypical
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: the woods of NJ.
Posts: 5,643
RE: Accidentally broke law - need advice
ORIGINAL: rgarand3006
I did not realize there was a difference between an antlerless tag attatched to my license and an antlerless permit which has to be applied for and purchased in addition to the license .Do I have to call some bureaucrat every time I run into something unclear that may have legal ramifications? That is essentially what the game warden and some other folks on this forum are telling me. Is this what we expect of a citizen of a republic or of a subject in a monarchy?
I did not realize there was a difference between an antlerless tag attatched to my license and an antlerless permit which has to be applied for and purchased in addition to the license .Do I have to call some bureaucrat every time I run into something unclear that may have legal ramifications? That is essentially what the game warden and some other folks on this forum are telling me. Is this what we expect of a citizen of a republic or of a subject in a monarchy?
11-13-2005, 05:11 PM
#42
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: USA
Posts: 494
RE: Accidentally broke law - need advice
ORIGINAL: rcw280
This was a young child and parents that were completly oblivious to the rules and regs, not sportsman they did not even have fishing equipment for themselves. Also they were not trying to hide or poach just trying to find out if there child could keep his first fish.
This was a young child and parents that were completly oblivious to the rules and regs, not sportsman they did not even have fishing equipment for themselves. Also they were not trying to hide or poach just trying to find out if there child could keep his first fish.
11-13-2005, 05:16 PM
#43
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: USA
Posts: 494
RE: Accidentally broke law - need advice
Do I have to call some bureaucrat every time I run into something unclear that may have legal ramifications? That is essentially what the game warden and some other folks on this forum are telling me. Is this what we expect of a citizen of a republic or of a subject in a monarchy?
This has nothing to do with "freedom" or republic vs. monarchy. You're just using buzz words to justify doing whatever the hell you want to do. These deer belong to all of the citizens of your state. They are not yours. You need to follow the rules pertaining to the resource because the rules are there to protect the property of all of the citizens of your state. Be a man and admit you screwed up and pay your damn fine.
11-15-2005, 11:35 AM
#44
Typical Buck
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location:
Posts: 833
RE: Accidentally broke law - need advice
Boy to read all this crap about you should know your laws,I dont fill sorry for you makes me sick.I can tell you EVER one of the loud typing guys has broak the law many times over.
I just went hunting with 6 guys this last weekend.3 of they are guys like on here talking crap about how they know EVERY law.Well at 12:00 sat. They hit me with tons of ?s about the hunting unit.[OK here this is there hunting unit ,I went to there spot] I try the best I can to keep track of all the laws but dang they change every year.Well 2 of the guys did things roung when killing there deer.One of them shot a what looked like a doe but had just over 3in horns. At the time of the shot there was 3 of us looking at all the deer with very good spoting scopes and binos.The deer was 254 yards by the range finder.Sorry deers ears are bigger than 3 in.Ears do hide 3 in horns.The 2nd one I was not standing there so I do not know what happend.
Now I am sure I was supose to turn him in,and get the $500 for doing so. But as a man that has made mistakes and broak the law befor [JUST AS EVERY MAN THAT LIVES] We did as a man stated in the begining Put him in the truck and DO YOUR OWN BUCHERING.
Charles Bradford
I just went hunting with 6 guys this last weekend.3 of they are guys like on here talking crap about how they know EVERY law.Well at 12:00 sat. They hit me with tons of ?s about the hunting unit.[OK here this is there hunting unit ,I went to there spot] I try the best I can to keep track of all the laws but dang they change every year.Well 2 of the guys did things roung when killing there deer.One of them shot a what looked like a doe but had just over 3in horns. At the time of the shot there was 3 of us looking at all the deer with very good spoting scopes and binos.The deer was 254 yards by the range finder.Sorry deers ears are bigger than 3 in.Ears do hide 3 in horns.The 2nd one I was not standing there so I do not know what happend.
Now I am sure I was supose to turn him in,and get the $500 for doing so. But as a man that has made mistakes and broak the law befor [JUST AS EVERY MAN THAT LIVES] We did as a man stated in the begining Put him in the truck and DO YOUR OWN BUCHERING.
Charles Bradford
11-15-2005, 12:03 PM
#45
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: NW Montana / SW Alberta Rockies
Posts: 3,258
RE: Accidentally broke law - need advice
If your in doubt about a law its quite easy to look in the regs or call the fish and game to find out, but if you "interpret" the regs a certain way, because that is the way you understand it, are two different things. As Charles said, they change continually and if you read in the regs you will read in fine print that these regs are subject to change at any time. That means, even the regs are just a guideline and not the law. I will say its difficult myself to stay up on all the changes due to different regs in just walking across a forestrey road chasing a buck and now a different set of rules apply being in a different district number.
I've never met a bunch of more perfek people in my whole life. I have to wonder how many would sweat it out if the IRS were to audit you.
Bobby
I've never met a bunch of more perfek people in my whole life. I have to wonder how many would sweat it out if the IRS were to audit you.
Bobby
pay up keep the hunting rights
11-16-2005, 07:56 PM
#47
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Delaware
Posts: 42
RE: Accidentally broke law - need advice
Here in Delaware we had a special doe season a couple of weeks ago. My brother took his buddy out hunting on state property just a few minutes up the road from my parents house and hunted in the evening. Just before shooting time was over he spotted a deer about 35 yards away in the brush. He said that they were watching it for about 5 minutes when he and his buddy decided that it was a doe. After he shot it and got up to where it layed he found out that his eyes must have tricked him. It was a seven point buck. He took it home and my father decided to do the right thing and call the game warden. The game warden came out and gave him a court date. Took the rack, left him the deer, and took his hunter's choice tag. Now he has a court date to determine what his fine is going to be. The minimum fine is $1,000. We added up all the charges that he can be charged with and the maximum fine is $14,000. That is one expensive deer if you ask me.
The reason that I decided to share this with you is because there are too many people out there like my brother that don't pay attention. We were both raised in the same household, with the same teachers, our parents. My father always taught us that if you are not sure of your target that you should not shoot. I am 23 years old and I can honestly say that I have never shot at anything or any game animal without being totally sure that it was, in fact, legal game. It is the people that don't take the time to read and/or follow the rules and regulations that make us, hunters that do, suffer the consequences. I'm sorry to say this but I am kind of glad that my brother had to learn the hard way. But to many people are learning the hard way. Just be sure of your target. Next time it could be a hunter.
The reason that I decided to share this with you is because there are too many people out there like my brother that don't pay attention. We were both raised in the same household, with the same teachers, our parents. My father always taught us that if you are not sure of your target that you should not shoot. I am 23 years old and I can honestly say that I have never shot at anything or any game animal without being totally sure that it was, in fact, legal game. It is the people that don't take the time to read and/or follow the rules and regulations that make us, hunters that do, suffer the consequences. I'm sorry to say this but I am kind of glad that my brother had to learn the hard way. But to many people are learning the hard way. Just be sure of your target. Next time it could be a hunter.
11-16-2005, 08:49 PM
#48
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: USA
Posts: 494
RE: Accidentally broke law - need advice
ORIGINAL: ELKINMTCWB
Boy to read all this crap about you should know your laws,I dont fill sorry for you makes me sick.I can tell you EVER one of the loud typing guys has broak the law many times over.
I just went hunting with 6 guys this last weekend.3 of they are guys like on here talking crap about how they know EVERY law.Well at 12:00 sat. They hit me with tons of ?s about the hunting unit.[OK here this is there hunting unit ,I went to there spot] I try the best I can to keep track of all the laws but dang they change every year.Well 2 of the guys did things roung when killing there deer.One of them shot a what looked like a doe but had just over 3in horns. At the time of the shot there was 3 of us looking at all the deer with very good spoting scopes and binos.The deer was 254 yards by the range finder.Sorry deers ears are bigger than 3 in.Ears do hide 3 in horns.The 2nd one I was not standing there so I do not know what happend.
Now I am sure I was supose to turn him in,and get the $500 for doing so. But as a man that has made mistakes and broak the law befor [JUST AS EVERY MAN THAT LIVES] We did as a man stated in the begining Put him in the truck and DO YOUR OWN BUCHERING.
Charles Bradford
Boy to read all this crap about you should know your laws,I dont fill sorry for you makes me sick.I can tell you EVER one of the loud typing guys has broak the law many times over.
I just went hunting with 6 guys this last weekend.3 of they are guys like on here talking crap about how they know EVERY law.Well at 12:00 sat. They hit me with tons of ?s about the hunting unit.[OK here this is there hunting unit ,I went to there spot] I try the best I can to keep track of all the laws but dang they change every year.Well 2 of the guys did things roung when killing there deer.One of them shot a what looked like a doe but had just over 3in horns. At the time of the shot there was 3 of us looking at all the deer with very good spoting scopes and binos.The deer was 254 yards by the range finder.Sorry deers ears are bigger than 3 in.Ears do hide 3 in horns.The 2nd one I was not standing there so I do not know what happend.
Now I am sure I was supose to turn him in,and get the $500 for doing so. But as a man that has made mistakes and broak the law befor [JUST AS EVERY MAN THAT LIVES] We did as a man stated in the begining Put him in the truck and DO YOUR OWN BUCHERING.
Charles Bradford
I've broken game regs before because of mis-reading or ignorance. I pleaded my case but no dice, although the judge gave me the minimum he could because I think he understood it was an inadvertnt mistake. - I paid my fine and moved on. I wasn't happy, but I sure won't claim I was innocent.
As for you and your buds killing an illegal spike deer because you couldn't tell about it with spotting scopes from 250 yards, my reply is that is simply the wrong excuse to make. There is no excuse for that sort of mistake - if you can't judge a deer's antlers because it's too far away... it's just too far away and you need to let it walk. Pure and simple. My opinion of course, but I would expect exactly NO sympathy for an error like that. That has NOTHING to do with complicated regs or such. It simply is some guys being too careless to judge a deer properly because they are taking shots that are too long to judge properly. No, I don't respect you and your buds at all for taking an illegal deer and hiding it. That's poaching in my opinion.
11-18-2005, 08:06 AM
#49
Thread Starter
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Dallas, TX
Posts: 26
RE: Accidentally broke law - need advice
Unless my doe and the other 4 or 5 deer around her were roaming with a hunter in their midst, I was sure enough of my target. I just thought it was okay for me to shoot a doe.
On Wednesday, I spoke with a lawyer in the town closest to where I was hunting. He said he thought I would probably be able to avoid having a conviction on my record by making a plea deal with the Justice of the Peace. This would involve paying my fine and some probation with "deferred adjudication". If I kept out of trouble during the estimated 90 days of probation, the whole matter would be dropped. In the final reckoning, the state would still get $250, I would have a clean record, and the attorney would get another $250 for negotiating this settlement.
On Thursday I called the JP, pleaded guilty, explained that I had misunderstood antlerless permit versus antlerless tag and she reduced the fine to the $200 I am mailing in today. BTW, I am sending a money order because my current address is not printed on my checks. Nobody else seems to care about the address issue, but government does so I'm not messing around.
While reviewing the regs again, I kept reading the part about certain size racks on bucks that would make that deer illegal. These racks would certainly look full from a distance. The manual says to use the buck's ears to determine if the rack is of the right dimensions. After this mess and given the screwed up nature of the explanations in the manual, I plan to: 1) Call the fish and game people with what I have in mind. 2) Shoot only approved deer. 3) Butcher the deer myself since I still feel like I'm flying nearly blind here with these regs.
Maybe I should just go hang out at a game processor shop for a few hours and get comfortable with legal versus illegal local deer for this county. In Texas, some counties have different definitions for legal bucks. Fun, huh?
Maybe what some of my brother and sister hunters are not understanding here is that my father-in-law is a farmer and these deer are a crop-eating pestilence. I'm going to obey the law as best anyone can. I'm just saying that it's hard for either us to see these whitetails as some kind of endangered species or something when I've seen a herd of six or so running together, two years in a row. Getting busted for a doe seems especially strange when we haven't seen more than one buck on the entire 100 acres of woods and farmland. I guess mine is not to reason why, but only to try hard to follow the law.
I am glad this is only $200 and not some of the fines others have posted about here. Lessons learned: avoid game wardens until I feel pretty comfortable with the regs. Glass the heck out of every deer before shooting. Go hunting with some experienced guys who really know the rules. Turns out my brother-in-law, who was not with me when I shot the doe, does not really know the rules.
On Wednesday, I spoke with a lawyer in the town closest to where I was hunting. He said he thought I would probably be able to avoid having a conviction on my record by making a plea deal with the Justice of the Peace. This would involve paying my fine and some probation with "deferred adjudication". If I kept out of trouble during the estimated 90 days of probation, the whole matter would be dropped. In the final reckoning, the state would still get $250, I would have a clean record, and the attorney would get another $250 for negotiating this settlement.
On Thursday I called the JP, pleaded guilty, explained that I had misunderstood antlerless permit versus antlerless tag and she reduced the fine to the $200 I am mailing in today. BTW, I am sending a money order because my current address is not printed on my checks. Nobody else seems to care about the address issue, but government does so I'm not messing around.
While reviewing the regs again, I kept reading the part about certain size racks on bucks that would make that deer illegal. These racks would certainly look full from a distance. The manual says to use the buck's ears to determine if the rack is of the right dimensions. After this mess and given the screwed up nature of the explanations in the manual, I plan to: 1) Call the fish and game people with what I have in mind. 2) Shoot only approved deer. 3) Butcher the deer myself since I still feel like I'm flying nearly blind here with these regs.
Maybe I should just go hang out at a game processor shop for a few hours and get comfortable with legal versus illegal local deer for this county. In Texas, some counties have different definitions for legal bucks. Fun, huh?
Maybe what some of my brother and sister hunters are not understanding here is that my father-in-law is a farmer and these deer are a crop-eating pestilence. I'm going to obey the law as best anyone can. I'm just saying that it's hard for either us to see these whitetails as some kind of endangered species or something when I've seen a herd of six or so running together, two years in a row. Getting busted for a doe seems especially strange when we haven't seen more than one buck on the entire 100 acres of woods and farmland. I guess mine is not to reason why, but only to try hard to follow the law.
I am glad this is only $200 and not some of the fines others have posted about here. Lessons learned: avoid game wardens until I feel pretty comfortable with the regs. Glass the heck out of every deer before shooting. Go hunting with some experienced guys who really know the rules. Turns out my brother-in-law, who was not with me when I shot the doe, does not really know the rules.
11-18-2005, 09:28 AM
#50
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: collin county, TX
Posts: 2,320
RE: Accidentally broke law - need advice
Glad to hear things worked out for you.
Are you in one of the antler restriction
counties? I guess I did'nt realize that
from your earlier post.
God bless & good hunting,
PK
Are you in one of the antler restriction
counties? I guess I did'nt realize that
from your earlier post.
God bless & good hunting,
PK