Behind the Badge - License Fraud
License Fraud
District Game Warden Erik Schmidt
Nonresidents who wish to hunt waterfowl in North Dakota are restricted to one waterfowl hunting license per season.
The nonresident waterfowl license allows hunters to choose two seven-day periods during which their license is good.
Selected dates may be changed but nonresident hunters can only hunt on days they have selected.
Not all nonresidents like being restricted to two weeks of hunting and a very small minority try to find ways around it.
Throughout my career, I've seen some interesting ways individuals have tried to get around the one license regulation.
The following are a couple of examples of cases I've encountered while checking hunting licenses in the field.
On the opening weekend of duck season in 2014 I was checking waterfowl hunters.
I happened upon a father and his sons hunting north of one of the smaller communities in my district.
When I asked to see hunting licenses, all four individuals handed me paper copies of their nonresident waterfowl licenses.
As I did then, and still do, I verified all of the information on their hunting licenses against the North Dakota Game and Fish licensing database.
When I got to dad's license, I noted that the dates on his license did not match up with the current dates in the NDGF system.
It seemed as though dad had bought his license, printed out a hard copy, and then changed his dates.
When I checked his license history over the previous few years, I saw a pattern in his license purchases.
Every year for the previous five years, this individual would select his hunting days and purchase his license.
Immediately after the license purchase, he would go back into the licensing system and change his dates.
My belief is he thought as long as a game warden didn't check his paper license against the electronic records, he would be able to hunt on an invalid license.
In this case, it resulted in a citation for hunting without a valid hunting license.
In early November 2018 I was patrolling McIntosh County when I found two individuals who had been duck hunting.
When I asked to see hunting licenses, one of the hunters, 'Bob', presented me with a nonresident waterfowl hunting license.
As I looked at his license, I noted the license indicated 'Bob' was born in 1936.
Some quick math told me that would mean 'Bob' was in his 80's and the man standing in front of me was clearly not in his 80's.
When I questioned him about this, he told me he must have 'fat-fingered' the wrong birthdate into the computer when he purchased his license.
When I checked 'Bob's' out-of-state driver's license, I found the only thing the same on both his hunting license and his driver's license was his name.
Everything else, birthdate, address, and physical features, were different.
As it turned out, 'Bob' shared a name with his father.
The younger 'Bob' had already been waterfowl hunting in North Dakota for two weeks in early October.
Wanting to do more waterfowl hunting in North Dakota, he purchased a second North Dakota hunting license in his father's name and attempted to hunt waterfowl with this fraudulent license.
Once again, this individual was charged with hunting without a valid hunting license.