Went duck hunting at Cooper WMA many years ago with a friend. When we got to our spot, I see him open a vary large and long bag. He pulls out 3 pump shotguns. I asked "What the heck?" He says just watch me. He had a small collapsible metal rack with long legs. Well he stabs that into the ground, proceeds to load up all 3 shotguns; 3 rounds each. The rack was designed to hold 3 guns at varying levels. So a flock of about 9 or so ducks come buzzing by us; after LST. He was holding 1 of the guns. He fires 3 rounds "quick". Drops the shotgun onto the rack, grabs the next gun on the rack and fire another 3 rounds "quick" at the ducks. And does the same again with the 3rd shotgun. I say holly cow man, you are like "full auto", but you only got 3 of the ducks. He says that it's better than he normally does, But Hell it is Fun!

Nope. It was two years ago in a north Texas county.

I have only had 1 ticket for no HE and it was dismissed cause, in fact I had taken the course but didn't have the card due to a lost wallet month before. No issues with him writing the ticket at all. This was pre-internet and before they kept records. You had to physically show the card. I forgot about losing it until he asked for it.

I have only had 1 bad experience with a game warden in all of my years of hunting and it happened 2 years ago. Here goes a long read.

When I first bought my place, I met the previous game warden with a few locals. He stayed a visited with us for about an hour and we exchanged info if we ever needed anything. The next year he transferred to another area. Our county received a new warden fresh out of the academy. I met him once before we had the issue with him. Someone kicked off a round bale that had caught fire, right in the middle of the county road, in front of a grass circle. The wind was howling that day and another landowner called us to let us know it was on fire and he had called the VFD. We hauled it back to the house and grabbed the water trailer and skid steer so we could put the fire out before it reached the 300 acre grass circle with 200 head grazing it. We were spraying out the round bale when the new GW arrived. He parked his truck about 100 yrds or so away in the bar ditch and just sat there. No lights. Not blocking the road. After the VFD and brush truck got the fire out, we all went over to meet him. Granted he had been in the county for a couple months now but none of the VFD (all long time land owners) nor us have ever met him. We all went and introduced ourselves and he made no small talk at all. I told him the land I owned and handed him my card. Literally shook everyone's hand and got in back in his truck and drove off.

Fast forward a couple months. 2nd weekend of quail season. We had several couples down to quail hunt. We hunted most of the day and had a big meal afterwards. After dark, we went out night hunting to see if we could catch some coyotes or pigs. I actually caught a coyote on a 200 acre wheat field and chased him down in a ranger. A couple hours later is when everything went down. We pulled up on a dirt tank and had some target practice. This tank is in the middle of a 4000 acre ranch and all of the gates are locked except for 1 entry gate next to the main ranch house. The ranch runs along the county road for about 3 miles. This road is not a high traffic road and mainly only used by surrounding landowners. We rarely see a vehicle that is unknown to us. After target practice, we exited to the county road and drove down the CR about 2 miles to a wheat field that border the road. We opened the gate and started spot lighting the wheat field. After not spotting anything a few of the girls needed to pee. We stopped and let them out. We had 2 rangers (both with LED bars and stereos blaring) with 6 people in each.

After the girls were finished, we were getting ready to leave when I noticed some lights flickering. When I looked back, all I could see was 1 small blue led and 1 small red led in the grill of the pickup. Both rangers are running, all of our lights are on, and both radios are jamming. I knew it was the warden and stepped out of the ranger. Nobody else noticed. I went back to the ranger and turned off the ranger and radio. At that point the GW had his hand on his side arm (still holstered but in a defensive position) and was screaming at me to "GET MY F$%^&&* HANDS UP!", to which I did so immediately. Finally everyone was wondering what I was doing and realized what was going on. He then grabbed my buddy that owns the ranch and pulled him to the back of his truck. After several minutes of talking to him he told me to "COME HERE NOW", to which I did.

He then proceeded to chew my butt out for not listening to him. We then had this conversation.
GW - "What did you shoot in the wheat field?"
ME - "Coyote. We can go back and look at it if you want?"
GW - "That wont be necessary."
looking at my watch and noticing that was almost 2 hours ago.
ME - "That was almost 2 hours ago. You have been watching us this whole time?"
GW - "Yes, I have. You have your hunting license?"
ME - "Absolutely."
At this point I became extremely angry. My reasoning is this guy just watched us for 2 hours. Just watched everyone's wife pop a squat.

ME - "Lets put this whole deal in perspective. You have been watching us for 2 hours and we haven't done anything illegal. You know who's land this is. You know we were riding around spotlighting with radios. And you roll up on us that way? What is that all about? You could have pulled up on us when we on the county road a few minutes earlier. It's not like we snuck up on you. You could have turned your light bar on. You could have hit your siren. There is a whole s#$% load of things you could have done different. We haven't done anything illegal and you damn near drew down on me."
GW - You can't be driving down the CR with those led lights on.
ME - why not. (buddy) does it all of time. Has been for years and the other GW didn't have an issue with it.
GW - .........
GW - (buddy) can do it because he has cattle and is checking on them.
ME - i have cattle too.
GW - .........
GW - I would prefer you let me know before you go spotlighting.
ME - Not a problem. I met you a couple months ago when we had the fire. You never offered your card but I gave you mine. Can I have your business card now?
GW - Here you go. I guess that will be all. How do I get out of here?
ME - Same way you came in. If you ever have another issue, you know my name and have my card. You know (buddy), just call us. And we will call the next time we go spotlighting.

The next weekend we called him to let him know we were going spotlighting. After about the 5th time, he told us we could just text him. After about 5th text, he told us not to worry about it any more.

Fast forward to February. We had been out quail hunting that evening and went spotlight for pigs on a wheat circle behind my house just after dark. (i use a thermal and spotted some pigs in the wheat and chased them down. I noticed lights coming down the CR and then turning onto my road that leads to my house. I head back to the house to see who it is because I wasn't expecting anyone. Guess who? It's the GW. I get to back to the house before he can stop and get out.
GW - "How's everything was going?"
ME - "Couldn't be better."
GW - I see some quail on the table. How was it?
ME - "Good. We shot 24 total. Just fixing to clean them and start supper. You hungry"
GW - "No Thank you.
He proceeds to go over to the table and count them.
GW - Yep 24. How many are yours?
ME - 10. We were just about to clean them when I noticed some pigs on the wheat circle thru my thermal. (point at the thermal)
GW - Thats similar to mine but its a hand held.
ME - Anything else?
GW - Nope. Have a good evening.

Haven't seen him since. Heard he moved up to DFW area. We currently do not have a GW for our county but the sheriff says we are getting another rookie. Fresh out of the academy. Looking forward to meeting him when he gets here.

BTW - We have a new name for our annual quail hunt. It's called "GET YOUR HANDS UP! Quail Hunt.

WOW I give you credit for taking time to type all that out

to everyone that is on the bandwagon of unload your gun, have license ready, be cordial, etc. Some of us enjoy having a nice casual UNDISTURBED evening or morning hunt. While I am sitting out in my own privately owned hunting field, it is not very enjoyable to have to stop periodically and get checked out head to toe, truck front to back, and asked 21 questions about where I've been, where i'm going, when I went hunting last, how many I shot, and the famous "did you kill any deer" considering that I haven't deer hunted in over 5 years. all of this is brought on by being in total compliance with every law on your privately owned place....I cant see how some of you think that there is not anything wrong with the length of leash theyre on

There are sheep, and there are sheep dogs.

So how shall they go about their job since you seem to know it all?
Game warden job ain't easy, during hunting season every single person has a gun on them, including criminals. You know how unnerving that has to be. I'm sorry, but if I just had an encounter and someone put me on edge, that's gonna take some time to wear off.

Does he know that you haven't deer hunted in 5 years, doubt it.
You get undisturbed hunts 99% of the time, quit griping. If you get checked frequently, there's a reason for that.

If you don't like it, too bad, you can either be cordial and get it over with or be a punk and make them leery of you.
Look at the hunting rules in Germany, Texas ain't too bad on hunting rules.

Glad I have never been stopped at my lease and never seen a GW in my county except driving down the highway once in 15 years. But been stopped 8 times in other counties always in dove fields with lots of people. 99% of time never see one. It's the name of the game. They either walk or drive 1/2 mile to reach me so no hunting is stopped except minute they read license. Walk to next person, no time lost. You getting stopped at your own place and checked like that, sorry but maybe friend the guy or gal, never heard of that. Never had a vehicle checked ever. I call it bad luck as never had one step foot on buddies places either unless called on purpose. I got plenty of crazy stories and all are brought on by the hunter themselves. I have been taken aside and questioned trying to get info about someone else and no big deal when you are getting them out of a situation. Now if you have to lie, good luck.

I followed a GW all the way from Spur Texas to Killeen. We drove about 90 MPH the whole way. My kinda dude.

If it is the same Kent county guy that's been there a long time, great guy.

He was just wanting to meet the famous "Bobcat Strangler"....

No idea. He kept going when I exited in Killeen so either he was headed home, headed from home, or maybe going to the TPWD office in Temple.

This ain’t Germany. It’s America, where I don’t have to show papers or prove that I’m not breaking the law. If a GW sees someone breaking the law, I’ve got no problem with them interacting with the law breaker. But to enter private property, without witnessing a crime (or even probable cause) is an anthema to most Americans.

Pleas tell us, out of all the hunters , how many “criminals”?

I’ve never had a problem with a GW, they’ve all been nice guys. Doesn’t mean that I don’t have 4th Amendment rights. GWs are the only branch of LE that violate people’s 4th Amendment rights every day.

Just because your ok with giving away your rights, don’t mean everybody else is.

Actually, you do have to have papers. You'd rather them be reactive to crime instead of proactive? Almost all game violaters are repeat offenders, so if they can catch small infractions, those lead to past violations that can mount up quickly.
Have y'all not ever read the game warden field notes? A good portion of those are just everyday checks. If they did away with those like y'all suggest, they couldn't catch half the criminals they do.

So yeah, maybe I am okay with them doing the job the way they do it. We only have these deer, ducks, and dove, and if there weren't game wardens out there enforcing laws, we wouldn't have any of those to hunt because people can't police themselves.

They do have lots of leeway compared to other LEOs.

Statutes allow them to go “wherever they reasonably suspect hunting or fishing activity is taking place” (paraphrasing) and inspect receptacles where game may be placed (i.e. coolers, sheds, etc.) with very few restrictions.

The courts have upheld these powers which don’t require probable cause to be shown under the 4th Amendment under the guise of their “inspection authority” - a similar rationale as the laws and court decisions allowing TSA checks at airports and BP/ICE checks at the border.

IMO these decisions go too far (just like the ones allowing interior “check stations”). But they are the state of the law right now.

I have had them drive into the ranch we were hunting (unknown to landowner) and drive through the bottom more than a mile into the interior of the ranch to check our camp. No other LEO could do that without landowner permission or a warrant unless they had witnessed or had a report of a crime taking place.

Makes zero sense to argue with or blame them though because, again, they don’t write the laws or court decisions.

Excellent point. Maybe we should set up check points everywhere. Then we could all go thru them several times a day, & we could catch all “the bad guys”. You know, like in East Germany used to.

Your bleating makes me sick.

how should they do their job? lets see, sit around, watch people hunt and fish since neither are illegal activities. Upon observation of illegal activity, make contact with said person(s) and begin the "investigation" No different than other leo's you can't get pulled over just to check a DL, but if your license plate light is out, you opened the door for them. I try to keep the door shut at all times. I guess it's aggravating to me because I know of and hear of people doing things that are legitimately damaging the resources, and these squirrel sheriffs yall defend are out writing tickets for people shooting doves off of parked tailgates and breaking homemade stick plugs when they check them.

Actually, any cdl vehicle can be pulled over without cause, ask me how I know. Was it inconvenient, yep, but it's the power they have, doesn't bother me.

And if you hear of these things that damage the resources, call the game warden.

Y'all just wait until dove season opens and read the field notes. You'll see why they check plugs and stuff.

I'm sorry, did my facts bother you? Flaky people like you is why I support the game wardens having the power they do.

other states do have check points and they catch a lot of people doing the wrong thing. It’s amazing how many people don’t tag deer or do it incorrectly or shoot something they don’t have a tag for. GWs greatest tool is other hunters speaking up when they see something wrong.

Only bad encounter I have had was on Toledo Bend fishing last summer. GW comes flying in on a aluminum boat that had no life left in it and he looked about 18. Asked my partner to see his life jackets and was pressuring him to give up that he was a guide since 3 of us were in the boat. No Guide and just a good friend taking his buddies fishing. Needless to say he lost his mind on my buddy because he asked him how tall he is and he said 72” (we are both Active Military so that’s common). GW said “no s***, how many feet is that you smart a**” and my buddy chuckled and said 6’0. GW wrote him a ticket for no life jacket and it was thrown out since we had all life jackets in the boat and the GW didn’t show to stand his ground on the life jacket issue.

I always demonstrate complete respect in spite of the fact most GW are more than 1/2 my age.I agree that a GW has a very stressful job with most folks he encounters being armed. In about 6 different positive experiences with GWs only once was did I find the situation upsetting and offensive.

One bad experience in Galveston many years ago a GW met us coming in at the launch ramp and did the routine check of fish and licenses. He then looks over my life jackets of which I had more than sufficient and starts yanking on several older ones that were a bit faded. He pulled hard enough that he ripped 2. None had any tears before he did his muscle thing. He then proceeds to give a citation for defective equipment. At the time I was working 7 days a week and had no time to go to court so I paid the fine in spite of my belief that this guy was an A hole!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Have had many encounters with GWs over the last 40 years and most by far were positive experiences however, a few, mainly with younger GWs right out of the Academy were somewhat unpleasant:

Was hunting the special Whitewing zone 20 yrs ago down in The Valley when two GWs approached our party. One of the GWs was a seasoned veteran of the department and the other was clearly a very green recruit fresh out of the academy who had a very poor understanding about doves in general. While pulling the birds out of my bag to count and examine, Green GW sees that I had a pigeon and began lecturing me on how wrong I was for shooting it and that he would have to write me a citation. When I explained to him that Feral Pigeons (aka Rock Doves) were not protected, he then accused me of having an attitude. When the older seasoned GW walked over to see what the fuss was all about, his younger partner held up my pigeon and said "look what this guy shot), at which time the older GW told him "give the man back his pigeon and move along". Not happy with being called on his error, the young GW proceeded to re-examine my remaining birds then held up a juvenile Mourning Dove and proceeded to tell me I had shot an Inca dove. However, by this time the older GW had walked off and I had no other means to prove him wrong. When I respectfully disagreed with him once more he accused me of giving him an attitude again then explained that he was going to be a "Nice Guy" and let me off with a warning.

I have been checked 15-20 times and never received a citation or had a bad experience.
Always unload my gun when they are approaching and can see me do it. Then have my DL, hunting license and hunters ed card out and ready to show them.

I have become friends with a retired GW whom I visit with whenever I can. We got to talking about the changes in law enforcement over the years. He said when he became a warden in the 60's, every one of them liked to hunt and fish and did so every chance they got. He thought to be an effective warden, you had to love the sport. He said todays wardens, for the most part, don't care anything about hunting or fishing. Therefore, it's difficult for the wardens and hunters and fisherpersons see eye to eye. He and I both agree you need knowledge to do this job but, more than anything else, an enormous amount of common sense is the best.