No, I take it all the way back home. It has always ticked me off to drive by or pull into one of these parks and see all the hunting trash piled up. Corn sacks, bottles, cans, gut piles/game carcasses, walmart sacks,...etc. The bags get tore open by critters and between them and the wind it gets scattered. That is why they call it 'littering'. I stopped at a raod side park once with family on the way back from the lease. With the stench (of rotting guts and flesh) and broken glass I got everyone back in and left. Hunters are touted as stewards of the land and a great example of conservation of nature. The heaps of trash say otherwise.

I completely agree with you on this, come on!!! is this all this GW has to do? I have the utmost respect for law enforcement and appreciate what they so, but things like this are ridiculous. Give me a break, if this ticket sticks, it is undeserved.

I can see where you are coming from, it might not be the right thing to do, but at least you didn't find a curve on a dirt road to sling your trash in a ditch. I have always taken mine home, and I have seen the roadside parks scattered with empty corn sacks, and really thought it looked bad.
Kinda hard lesson to learn though.

Spanky

Preach on brother!, A men.

Have to disagree with you on that one. Something tells me that GW was doing more than just setting there, trying to catch people littering. I bet he was also checking other things while he was had those folks corraled.

I have seen way to many deer carcasses, or the remains there of, along with turkey, duck, quail, feral hog, and javelina at the road side rest areas, especially the ones out west and down into the hill country.

That doesn't give hunters a good image. Also you have to set and wonder what the numbers of those remains were from illegal animals. I have also seen fish, both fresh and saltwater throwed out, because folks decided they didn't want to miss with them.

I can fairly well guarantee, that the GW was not just there trying to catch people littering. We are lucky here in Texas, in that we don't have to check our deer in after we kill them. It is really too tempting to start home with a couple of deer, and after that first 100 miles or so, decide that it would be easier to just pull the hams and backstraps/tenderloins, and toss the rest.

In a lot of areas of west texas and the hill country, a lot of the rest areas are out where that after 7 or 8 at night, there ain't much traffic, and at some of them there ain't that much traffic in the daytime either. It don't take that long to get those pieces that I mentioned above off.

JMO, but as some folks said on the topic of GW's trying to catch law breakers off of the computer, I don't really care what a GW has to do to catch poachers, if that means setting and watching road side rest areas, I say go for it.

good point, I have not experienced much of what you are describing, which is probably the basis of my response. However, if I were to witness what you are describing, it would disgust me. Wanton waste is a terrible thing. We as hunters really do have am image to uphold.

There is no doubt that the GW would have cited offenders for other penalties but he was focused on hunter/other dropping trash @ the road side park. The reason I mentioned this is that when he got on his radio to his gw partner to bring the truck over, he said "I got another one". He didn't say I got one throwing out deer guts, carcasses or anything like that, so that led me to believe their focus was on folks leaving garbage. Additionally, he told me TP&W had been running ads in the local paper (near Mason) to dissuade this behavior. They also had been issuing warnings for a year or more, of which I had never seen, and now have stepped up the penalty to a citation with a fine.

A GW can also give you a ticket for speeding. It really doesn't matter why they were watching the rest area, whether it was to catch poachers or people littering, it sends a message to hunters that they need to clean up their act, and just because someone else got away with doing something illegal, that doesn't mean that the next person trying it is going to be so lucky.

I fully understand your point, my point is that between the other people that were probably caught besides you, and your posting it here on The Forum, it has probably acheived the desired effect. If nothing else, people will stop and think before they throw out their camp trash, quarter up a deer, or whatever, when they stop at one of the roadside rest areas, cause they won't know but what a GW or a Highway Patrol Trooper isn't setting somewhere with a pair of binoculars watching them.

Your analogy, has nothing to do with every barrel at a roadside rest area being full, with garbage bags and corn sacks, and not only are the barrels full, but there are bags piled up around each of the barrels. Typical, traveling trash, is the stuff you get at a fast food place, soft drink cups and other assorted trash. Not egg cartons, bacon packages, empty beer bottles, anything that would be able to be considered as "HOUSEHOLD" trash, that includes, EMPTY DEER CORN BAGS.

And NO, if I get to a roadside rest area with restrooms, and they are full, whether with people or their leavings, I will go till I find a dirt road, and turn and go down it and get out of sight of the highway.

Yes as tax payers and highway users, we have the right to use the facility, BUT WE SHOULD NOT DO SO IF WE ARE ADDING TO A PROBLEM ALREADY THERE.

I have been on the roads down around Mason, and on 67 between San Angelo and Fort Stockton, and seen both rest areas and just roadside litter barrels that were full, with half a dozen black household garbage bags and as many or more corn sacks, piled up around them.

Your like people that get caught speeding, how many times did you do it before you got caught.

I for one have seen too many of the rest areas closed down, because people can not just do what is responsible or decent. Have you noticed how many of the rest areas, are several miles in most cases, from a town of any size. Ever wonder why?

Because people will carry their trash out there. Drug users and people cooking meth will congregate and sell and use drugs. Roadside rest areas were designed for the traveling public to use and feel safe while doing so. Also, they shouldn't have to be looking at trash from our hunting camps.

Am I making a bigger deal of this than is necessary, Yes I am and that ain't a surprise to ANYBODY on here.

I have a real, certifiable problem, with people that complain about getting their PeePee slapped for something that they knew better than doing.

I have said more than enough on this, and I have no sympathy for you. You would probably complain if you got caught doing 70 in a 60 zone, and YOUR TAXES, PAY FOR THAT HIGHWAY, BUT, YOUR TAXES ALSO PAY FOR THOSE TROOPERS SETTING OUT THERE ENFORCING THE SPEED LIMITS.

I am thru with this topic, because, if you had of pulled up to that rest area, and those Game Wardens would have had some poachers under arrest, you would have been singing their praises for a jopb well done.

leave this thread for 5mins and crazy steps in and steals my soapbox!

Sorry About That!!! You can have it back now.
Merry Christmas.

What a bum rap! At the least the GW could have given you a warning. The state needs to do a better job cleaning up the rest areas during peak times. If they don't want you to dump trash there they need to close them. What's this gonna lead to? People are going to dump their trash on the roadside or in some creek or gully instead of taking a chance getting busted at the rest area. Just my opinion but you didn't do anything deserving of a ticket.

I don't know what part of the world you are from, or if you just don't pay attention to what is going on around you, but they have closed a lot of the roadside rest areas down, all around the state, and people are dumping their trash from hunting camp in the ditches or any other place they can find.

Maybe you never have got out and drove down some of the county roads out west of the Metro-mess, and seen all the crap people have thrown out once they got out of sight of the main highway.

I have found whole does and pigs that people just dumped cause they didn't want to mess with them, along with all their camp trash and corn sacks.

Those rest areas weren't put there as hunters/fishermens private little dump grounds. People that don't hunt or fish, use those places, and they may really not get a kick out of looking at or smelling our garbage, and they do vote.

Piling up camp trash and carcass parts and expecting the state to take care of it is WRONG in anybodies book.

Also, if you ain't noticed, Texans ain't the only folks traveling on the roads, and stopping at those places.

A bunch of overflowing garbage cans, with deer corn bags, animal parts and empty beer cans sure gives the state a good image.

I assumed Sirhuntalot probably just dropped a small bag of trash at the rest area. Animal parts or a carcass would be a whole nother story. Burn what you can and dispose of the carcass where you hunt. But if somebody wants to drop a few cans and bottles at the rest area I would rather have them there than in my pasture or along side of the highway. Let's deal with reality not how we would like things to be.

That is all I am getting at. Unlike a lot of folks, when I am going someplace here in the state to hunt, I take a lot of scenic routes. A lot of times due to my knees and back, I have to stop and get out stretch, walk around, get the blood back to circulating. The roadside rest areas are good places to do this at.

But because of my travel methods, I along with Lora(campcook), get to see first hand a lot of the things I am talking about. Just take a run down 377 or 67, once you get past San Angelo, or 380 west of Jacksboro. There is one park on 380, where I counted the remmants of at least 5 different deer carcasses that had been tossed over the fence.

I don't mean to come off so strong on this subject, but this is one of those behaviors that folks will keep on doing it as long as they can get away with it, and look what it teaches our next generation of young hunters if they see their dads/uncles/granddads, do this type of stuff.

A lot of folks say that they are proud to be Texans, but they don't show it when they trash out a rest area and the property around it.

Somebody else can have the Soapbox now.

I say you plead not guilty and ask for a jury trial. Explain to the jury exactly what happened and see what they decide. When you signed the citation you merely signed a promise to appear at the specified time and date. You did not sign an admission of guilt.
I have been in the business long enough to know that when you see a lot of tire ruts through the grass, it can be considered two ways. Some officers think they should go there and write citations to curtail the driving on the grass. Other officers would think that a large number of people have driven through the grass and ask why. Then contact the proper authorities to have an exit installed because a large number of the public have indicated the need for it. Kind of a long way to say maybe the state should put a dumpster there during the season and make everyone happy. I know the trash cans yall were talking about and they were that way in the late seventies.

Why should TxDOT or TP&W put out dumpsters for hunters to put their trash in, and do you think hunters will be the only ones to use them. I don't know what kind of business you have been in, but I can tell you from experience, people keep abusing the roadside rest areas, and TxDOT will close them.