My in laws have a little piece of property they visit on the weekends and one of the game wardens lives two houses down. I do not believe he has ever gone up to the house to meet them in the past few years he has lived there. This morning he stopped by asking if his son(middle school age) could hunt and fish as he pleases on the property…

Is this a common occurrence?

Since they told him no should I expect to see the warden hanging around during hunting season far more?

Not likely in my opinion.

Not common, IMO, but I doubt they'll see him much.

Folks in the country who don't have a place to hunt (the game warden) commonly ask if they can hunt/fish neighboring properties. There's nothing out of the ordinary about it, but there will be some folks on here shortly who come up with some grand conspiracy.

If it was the warden who wanted to hunt it would have been no, but if we have an opening we will keep you in mind.

But hey can my son have full access to his place because I’m busy being a warden seems bizarre.

I would have to actually have heard the entire conversation myself for me to say bizarre.

If your inlaws felt threatened in any way by the interaction, you should report it. Do you feel he was trying to use his position of power as a game warden to get free hunting access unduly? Some people would like to have the game warden as a guest. That he was a game warden may be his way of trying to let y'all know he is a good guy, trustworthy.

Otherwise, I rewrote your post and changed the occupation of the game warden to a garbage man. All of a sudden, it doesn't sound strange or bizarre in any manner, just a neighbor without land asking if his boy can hunt.


What, where, when, and how would have to be worked out, of course.

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There is NOTHING wrong with saying NO to the game warden or anybody else who approaches and requests permission to hunt. There is nothing wrong with a neighbor asking for access for his kid, regardless of their occupation and it isn't an ethical issue unless you think he did your inlaws wrong somehow by asking and if that is the case, you need to report him, but nothing you described sounds like this was the case. I get folks asking me to use my place maybe a dozen times a year, some to use my range and some to hunt.


What I would have done in your inlaws situation (if I felt good about the interaction) is offer to let the boy hunt, but only when supervised by his father, under X circumstances. Basically, since he asked for his boy, he needs to be present and responsible for his boy when hunting hunting.

Guess three things stand out as odd,

1) Lives 2 doors down but never tried to engage before asking for hunting rights while in warden truck and gear.
2) Acknowledged he knew we had lease hunters but didn’t show any interest in compensating for hunting access.
3) Not asking for himself but rather his child not old enough to drive full access the the property whenever.

Again, doesn't seem that odd except your concern about the game warden aspect. As a landowner (of hunting land) and a former guide, I can tell you that none of this is that odd. Lots of people have different social skills, manners, and parenting styles.

Seems odd to me if a prior relationship was not already established. Maybe a better approach could of started with “hey, I have a young man looking to stay busy and help our neighbors…have any work he can do” and go from there.

Got a new GW in Montague County a couple of years ago. I saw him and went to introduce myself. He already knew who I was and where I kept the key to my front gate. He told me that the previous warden had briefed him about a lot of the locals. No problem.

I also would need to hear the conversation to say it was odd. However, if my son wants to hunt/fish someone’s property, I tell him he can but only if he talks to them and gets permission himself.

I’m not a game warden but i have tried door knocking. Also calling farmers.

Once i called a pick your own produce place to ask if i could shoot crows and he was so thrilled that I wanted to shoot his crows, and asked me to shoot the pigeons too. Hardly any crows but overrun with pigeons.

Today there are people that would gladly pay $400 per person per weekend for that kind of pigeon action.

They can’t poison birds because the raptors are protected. The poison he uses for groundhogs i guess is non toxic to birds, he had no issues with groundhogs lol.