Got a ticket from G&F

[Coach]

Several years back I was bowhunting the border areas between 1 & 27 along the Black River. For all the years I had ever bowhunted growing up, these bordering unit shared the same seasons. For some reason, for only a year or two, the season closed in 27 a few days earlier that 1.

 

I was camped in unit 1 at Sheep's Crossing, and hunting unit 1, but one morning I decided to go hunt the other side of the Black, which, of course, is unit 27. I should have known that season for 27 ended two days earlier. I was in the wrong for not knowing about the date changes for that unit.

 

As I was driving to a spot I wanted to hunt I encountered a G&F guy. I politely pulled to the side, rolled down my window and started a converastion with him. I told him I was planning to go up the road to Middle Mountain and do some deer hunting.

 

He then asked me if I knew where I was, and I said, "Yeah, unit 27". He then said, "So do you know the deer hunt ended on Thursday?"

 

You could have knocked me over with a feather. But the one comfort I felt I had, was that I hadn't left the truck. I was planning to hunt in 27, and admitted as much. At this point, given every encounter I had ever had with AZ G&F, I expected him to say something along the lines of, "Go back to unit 1, and make sure you know the dates, you knot-head"

 

Instead, he wrote me a ticket for "Taking Game in a Closed Unit".

 

I was floored. Not only had I not "Taken" any game, I hadn't stepped foot out of my vehicle.

 

Yes, I was wrong not to know that the hunt dates had changed that year from what they had been. And if I had been actually hunting when I got the ticket, I would have very much deserved it. But I wasn't. I was on my way to a certain, specified location with the intention of hunting, and I admitted that freely.

 

I fought the ticket, and ended up having to plead "no-contest". It was a tricky one for me. I knew I was in the wrong for forgetting the unit-specific hunt dates. On the other hand, I hadn't actually committed an infraction. I was planning to hunt 27, and was on my way to do so, but never actually hunted in the closed unit.

 

Both the judge and the prosecuter were clearly hesitant to persue the case (Springerville), but it became obvious that they didn't want to step on G&F authority and drop it outright. With a "no-contest" plea, and a "voluntary" $100 donation to operation game theif the ordeal was over. But I've still got this on my record, as if I were an intentional poacher. That's the part that really hurts. I consider myself a real stickler for the rules and laws, and never intentionally even "bend" them.

 

The point of this story is, sometimes law-abiding, well intentioned people make honest mistakes. In those "gray areas" I think LEOs have some discression. It is those type of situations that make people either embrace them or become agtagonistic.

 

We all love to hunt and fish, and we all, generally, respect the job of our outdoor law enforcement officers.

 

We have to know and follow the laws - but they also have to be able to make some common sense judgement in the field. One bad experience can turn hunters against LEOs and vice-versa. We definately don't want that.

 

Just to be clear, I don't mean this as an AZGFD bashing thread. I admit my fault in this situation 100%, and in over 2 decades of hunting and fishing AZ, my few and brief encounters with G&F officers have been very positive.

 

But, in this situation, having not actually made it to my destination and actually hunted there, I thought this could have been handled better by the officer.

 

What are your thoughts?

[bonecollector]

I think he should have just let you go and not have given you a ticket. You never committed a crime even though you had your intentions to hunt the closed unit unknowingly, you NEVER did.

[tjhunt2]

Yes I think this could have been handled much better. I have a great respect for azgf but I also had a bad experience many years ago. My Dad, brother, and I shot three cow elk in an area that was going to take some major backpacking to get all the elk meat out. The first pack trip we had more meat than tags hanging in camp and they wanted to give tickets. We argued and I was about to go to fist city and knew I was going to jail but not before a fight. I asked where should the tag be here in camp or on the remainder of the meat in the field? I also asked the game warden to meet us here in the morning and follow us in the field and see for himself. It all turned out and thank God because I wasn't going to take no sh!t before a fight. That game warden and I are good friends to this day.

 

TJ

[AzHuntingAddict]

Thats not right. Small town good ole boy mentality gave you a bad taste in your mouth and a 100$ donation. Sounds like there was no clear evidence of taking game. That was jacked!

[azgutpile]

Its interesting that this has bothered you enough to write about it several years late. I don't think AZGFD knows what their doing to their image with BS tickets like this. If they catch you breaking the law, they should have full authority to take action, just dont streach the truth and don't treat people as guilty unless they are.

 

I have to say that I had an incident at the 2009 unit 27 mule deer road block (not a check point)that still bothers me to this day. Something about being told to pull over to the side of the road for an interigation that doesn't sit right with me. During the conversation I gave them the ok to search my truck; however, I never thought they would have 8 officers jump in the back of my truck looking through everyhing. About 40 minutes later and on field sobriety test, in front of all my friend and about 40 other people I was given the ok to proceed. 3 miles down the road I had the idea of checking my load and found my backpack open and hanging off the side of my truck. I got really lucky that my Swaros didn't fall out on the road. Buy the way, I was told that I didn't do so good on the field sobriety test and that I had to blow, which I did and it was a (.000); They didn't seem to happy about that.

[.270]

they'll give a ticket for that but some punk kid can go on a poaching spree and get a slap on the wrist and keep their license. in the same unit with same wardens, judge and prosecutor. Lark.

[deercrazy]

Don't let any LE officer kid you that there is no quota. They have to write a report about their day, and their boss will not believe that they couldn't find anyone doing anything wrong in a shift. This type of government waste is what I find so offensive.

[pwrguy]

2 words...cop mentality. Welcome to AmeriKa

[donniedent]

Thats like getting a DUI on the way to the bar! Well, they are only hurting themselves.

[AZLance]

This is why I never pull over and talk to G&F unless they have their red and blue lights on... I have had several of them stop and roll their window down wanting to talk... I just keep rolling bye and wave.

[CouesWhitetail]

Wow, that's really sad. I am amazed you can get a ticket for "taking game in a closed unit" when you didn't even actually get out and hunt it. That really floors me. Thanks for sharing your story.

[joeybari]

This story doesn’t sound right, sorry im trying to believe you but i think there more to this story then what you’re telling us. I’m not trying to start a fight but sounds and smells Fishy.

[OpticNerd]

Crazy story! The only thing I can think of is that maybe the officer thought you were road hunting. When would it be considered that you were actually hunting in 27? I know plenty of guys that consider just driving roads as hunting. You were already planning on hunting in 27 so driving down a road in 27 could be seen by the officer as hunting in that unit since you said you were planning on hunting the unit. If you saw a buck run across the road would you stop and go after him? Not trying to be rude just pointing out some possibilities.

[BikerRN]

I'll reserve judgement on the story, but I will note that sometimes LEO's aren't above just issuing the ticket to let the judge sort it out.

 

Make no mistake about it, Game and Fish are law enforcement officers, and being a former LEO myself, I have a pretty good idea of the games they can play. I will respect the position they hold, but will not help them to prosecute me. Not because I'm knowingly committing a crime, but because that's the way the game is played, and rest assured, it is a game.

 

Biker

[Coach]

Joey, I can certainly understand your skepticism. I couldn't believe it either, nor could any of the people I hunt with. All I can tell you that it is absolutely true. The warden who wrote the ticket used to frequent this site, maybe still does. I would invite him to chime in as well. I fully expected that when I gave my statement to the prosecutor, and she verified that it and warden's version of the events matched, she would toss it out complelely.

 

I even printed out the definition of "Take" from the G&F rules, and pointed out that with the broadest interpretation of that definition, which includes the word "persuit" I didn't see how they say that I was actively persuing game, let alone "taking" game. Her response was, (parphrasing) the general rule, is that you are hunting, just by being out there with the intention to hunt. Her reasoning was that if you happened to see an animal you could/would persue it.

 

You could tell she really didn't want to persue the case after knowing the full story, but my sense was she felt obligated to. I might have been able to fight it in court and win, but the stakes would have been a lot higher, i.e. losing hunting rights for 5 years, big fines. And if I couldn't convince her that I wasn't in violation, how could I be sure I could convince a jury?

 

One last thing - I still have the incident report, and the way it is written leaves out key components. Here is an example (this is verbatim except for the officer's name) from the last paragraph:

 

"Officer XXXX observed Jones in the field with his compount bow, arrows and broadheads. Field photographs were taken of Jones holding his archery equipment." What this doesn't say is that I was in my vehicle - driving when he "observed" me, or that after our conversation he asked me to get out of the vehicle and hold my bow so he could take a picture of it, which I did, in an effort to be as compliant as possible. When asked about it by the prosecuter he verified that I was in fact driving at the time, just didn't put that in the report.