Fustrated with a CO

[RNC]

Recently my brother and I went to a state mamagement area to call some turkeys. The area is closed to turkey hunting so its good place to go and pratice. We had a good moring seeing about 20 birds and had several close encounters. As we were walking out I saw a black pick-up with a gold shield on the door comming down the road. The truck stopped and the driver looked at us then pulled into the parking lot. As we got to the lot the trucks was waiting for us, it was a local Conservation Officer. The CO asked what we were hunting and we expalined that we had been only calling turkeys and that we didnt have any guns or bows with us. The CO then asked us where our targets were, we again told him we were not shooting anything. The more we explained what we were doing the more it became obvious that the CO had no idea what we were talking about. We went so far as to pull out a copy of the turkey regs and show him that the are we were in was closed to hunting so we knew we could safely pratice calling. Again he kept asking where our targets where but never asked if we had guns. We showed him the calls we had and he had no clue what the calls were. How in the world do enforce game laws when you have no idea what the current hunting season is about?
 
Before any law enforcement types get ruffled no this officer was not reasking questions to see if we changed answers. He only asked the one question one way, where are your targets? He never got out of the truck, never asked for any ID, never checked for weapons or anything else. If he thought we were shooting or poaching he should of been doing all those things.  

[shadow]

Sounds awfull, How can ANYONE perform their job if they do not know anything about it, or the laws and regulations they are supposed to enforce in this case, he was alone, not riding along learning his job. He should have not been out there.
I would think a Conservation Officer must pass some written and oral exams along with having common sense and knowing what type of questions to ask.

[silvestris]

You must never allow yourself to forget that the world is inhabited by humans.  Human behavior should never be surprising.

[RutnNStrutn]

Well, count yourselves lucky.  I've experienced worse than that down here in FLA. 
I arrowed a hen turkey during archery season, which is legal in Florida.  On the way out of the WMA, I came upon a roadblock with 3 game wardens.  They had 2 guys in handcuffs sitting on the side of the road.  I thought to myself, "Good!! They caught a couple of law breakers!"
When it was my turn to be checked, I gave the guy my permit and licenses.  He asked how my hunt went and I told him, "Fantastic!  I got my first turkey with a bow!"
He asked to see it.  It was a hen, and when he saw it he said, "Uh-oh, hens aren't legal.  You'll have to pull to the side.  I'm confiscating your turkey and giving you a citation."
I replied, "What are you talking about?  That hen is completely legal!  I'll show you in the pamphlet."
I proceeded to pull out the pamphlet for that WMA, and review the rules and legal to harvest animals with him, and proved that I was correct.
He simply said, "In that case, you can keep your turkey, and turned his back to me and started to walk away."
By now I was furious! [:@]  So I said to him as he walked away, "You're darn right I'm keeping the turkey!!  I wonder if those 2 guys in handcuffs actually did anything wrong!!" [;)]
He ignored me and kept walking, so I got in my truck and left.
Since then, I've had numerous run ins with LEO's that had no clue about game laws, bag limits or species identification. 
Word of advice - ALWAYS carry a copy of the game laws and species ID's with you.  You never know when you are going to run across a less than educated LEO.

[quackingtim]

I Arkansas waterfowl hunting I had the same CO asked to see my hunting permit 4 days in a row. 

[Cut N Run]

I have a brother who is in law enforcement who also happens to be a Jackass (you can't choose your relatives). I hope you got that CO's name and/ or badge number.  Their job is to enforce the law, not to hassle law abiding citizens.  Everyone has a supervisor, a call to his by the right person will end that nonsense. You might also call his boss in the future and tell them where you will be and what you will be doing, that way there are no surprises. 
 
 That CO was given a job to look after that piece of land and assumes anyone out there is up to no good (unfortunately many poachers are looking to rob the rest of us of our resources and too many get away with it). Bad on that CO that he refused to listen to reason and had no concept of what you were doing.
 
Some people (like my brother) enjoy being a pain in the backside to others and hiding behind his badge because he can get away with it...Good thing he lives on the other side of the Country, that is just about far enough away from here.
 
BTW, I have a couple of other brothers I get along with just fine, they also think the other one is an @$$, because he goes out of his way to be.
 
Just Sayin', Life's too short.
 
Jim
 
 

[RNC]

I dont think the CO was out trying to be a jerk he just didnt have a clue. I dont mind being stopped by a CO and having my license or anything checked. Thats their job and I got nothing to worry about. But you should know what your looking for and what your dealing with. You want to approach someone fine. Be professional and do your job the right way.

[STEROIDCHICKEN]

i had a run in with a kansas game warden two years ago. the fellas name was jeff blauser, me being from georgia and a atlanta braves fan, i said is that jeff blauser like the atlanta braves and he said in a stern voice, "NO, THAT IS LIKE JEFF BLAUSER, THE GAME WARDEN". i knew then that this was gonna be fun. i had killed a nice deer the day before and he had asked about it. everything was tagged correctly like it was suppose to be...there was one thing however that he didn't like. my license and big game permit was printed off online. when it printed, a flag came up that there was an error, but it said that you could not reprint. it did print out my license and permit so i put everything in a brown envelope along with the error page and took it all with me to kansas. while MR. BLAUSER was checking out my license, he noticed a code that did not print out, however the license was correct. i showed him a copy of my visa charge which totaled the exact amount for license and permit. everything was correct. he said that he would have to give me a citation. a citation that was $180.00 cash money which had to be paid on the spot. the warden would drive you to the nearest post office and watch you mail it. he also confiscated my deer head and also wanted the meat. i had already taken the meat to the processor and paid for it already. i give the meat to the land owner who is a elderly christian women that is kind enough to lease me her property. she is always so thankful for the generous gift every year and helps the needy at her church by making them dinners and such. i begged the warden not to take it in which after several pleas, he decided not to. however, the head, he was keeping...no deals on that. i had him call in to the headquarters, to verify that i was legal and everything was legite, he refused. i had every peice of info that he asked for, the only thing was a small code that could barely be seen on the license itself had not printed off. after this ordeal, that evening at the hotel, i realized that i did not have a copy of the citation so at that point, i called his supervisor. i explained everything to him that happened and he stated that MR. BLAUSER should have not cited me but since the money was already in the post office box, there was nothing that he could do. he told me to mail everything back to him once i got home. he also said that he would have MR. BLAUSER bring me a copy of the citation. a few minutes went by and MR. BLAUSER called me apologizing for the incident, evidently, he got a chewing out by his boss. he asked me to meet him for a copy,at that point, i had already had a couple of adult beverages and told him that i refuse to get in my car and that he would have to drive across the county to give it to me. i could tell that he didn't like the idea but had no choice but to do it. when arriving at the hotel, he called me and ask for me to meet him outside, i guess he was scared to come inside. he said that when the info is sent to his superior he would get my money and my head back to me. he then apologized again, at that point, i was still aggrevated and disgusted about the whole deal. needless to say, i never received my head or money back. this past year while visiting kansas again, i called the supervisor and ask if he could meet me somewhere so that he could check everything so that this wouldn't happen again. he was kind enough to do so and he also remembered the ordeal that happened last year. i told him that i never did receive my head nor money back so he was going to investigate it and try to recover them for me. he then told me that MR.BLAUSER was also a part-time police in the area and has had several complaints of driving tickets being given for persons going 1 mileover the speed limit. i hate for anyone to loose there job, but if they aren't doing it correctly...i have no mercy.         

[quackingtim]

We invited a new CO in our area out for a goose hunt.  First thing he does after we get the decoys set out was ask us for our licenses, and check our guns for plugs.  He knows how to make friends.  He has never been asked back.

[Cut N Run]

I have a friend who is a Wildlife Officer who hunts with me sometimes. Seems like whenever we get together we usually see someone doing something stupid or attempting to break the law and he never gets to finish what we set out to do.
 
Several years ago a friend & I were bowhunting together a good buck on public land and I told the wrong person who figured out where I was hunting. While on stand one morning, I heard a truck ease down the nearby gravel road and come to a stop. Pretty soon, two guys toting high-power rifles passed about 75 yards of me and 100 yards of my friend. I high tailed out of there and called the Game Warden who got some other on-duty officers (I was mad partly because they were after the same buck as me, but mainly because they were hunting with rifles on gamelands during archery only season). They got caught, had their rifles confiscated, and paid a big, fat, fine.
 
I never did get a shot at that buck either.
 
Jim