Behind the Badge - Off Duty
Off Duty
District Game Warden Jonathan Peterson
Just because the game warden is “off duty” doesn’t mean that he isn't still watching.
I had a couple days off during the first week of pheasant season in the middle of the week, and decided it was a nice day for a walk with the shotgun and the dog.
Since it was the middle of the week and nonresidents couldn’t hunt on PLOTS I thought I would go walk a piece of PLOTS ground that I had hunted before and figured that there shouldn’t be anyone hunting it.
When I started walking I could hear some shooting around me just figuring it was waterfowl hunters in the area.
I took note of the general direction of a specific volley of shots as it sounded like it was coming from the PLOTS property that I was on.
I went about my walk but made a point to start heading in the direction where I was hearing a considerable amount of shooting.
I decided that I couldn’t help myself anymore, I had to get closer and see where they were at and what they were shooting.
When I got to about 400 yards away I could tell that it was duck hunters on the shoreline of the PLOTS tract.
I could also tell that they were starting to pick up their decoys so I decided to just go have a quick chat.
When I contacted them the first thing that I noticed was the Minnesota registration on the boat.
I mentioned it sounded like they were having a good shoot that morning and they asked how pheasant hunting was.
I told them it was going ok but I wasn’t hunting anymore.
I told them that I was now working.
They looked at me confused and I told them who I was and provided them with a wallet badge that I carry.
I asked the group if they were all from Minnesota to which they stated they were.
I told them that the PLOTS tract that we were all currently standing on is closed to nonresidents during the first seven days of pheasant season.
They claimed to have not known this regulation and I told them that it wasn’t the crime of the century by any means but it was something that was going to need to be addressed.
I told the group that since I was there I might as well check everything else.
I asked them how many birds they had shot and what they had shot.
One individual said that they had mostly ring-necked ducks, a bufflehead, and a couple mallards.
I told them to throw all the ducks into one pile so I could take a look at them.
What the group thought was a bunch of ring-necked ducks was not at all.
They did not have one single ring-necked duck but instead had 18 bluebills (scaup) for the 4 hunters.
I asked the group if they knew what the limit for bluebills was and the group assumed the daily limit was six per person.
I told them that it was 1 bluebill per hunter.
The math was starting to compute to everyone that now they were in much bigger trouble than just hunting in a restricted area.
The group had harvested 14 bluebills over the daily limit, and had hunted on PLOTS during the restricted week.
Both violations were addressed and the group of hunters, even though had made a couple mistakes, were very polite and easy to work with.
They understood that I had a job to do (even on a day off) and we left the location with handshakes.
Moral of the story is that even when the game warden isn’t working, we like to hunt and fish too and we are always watching.