Behind the Badge - Read Your Tag
Read Your Tag
District Game Warden Dominic Falch
Deer Season never ends for a game warden.
There are always cases made well after the season, with some incidents that are not reported till months later.
It was a December day when I received a text from another warden, who asked me if I had seen any pictures from a local big buck contest that was held the day prior.
I said no and he then sent me a picture of a hunter holding the antlers of a white-tailed deer.
But what shined brightly in the picture was the pink stripe on the tag.
The pink stripe means that the tag was only good for an antlerless deer.
A couple days later I went to talk to the hunter.
When I knocked on the door she answered.
When I asked about the deer she had shot, she brought me out to the garage and handed me the antlers.
I then unfolded the tag and asked her if she could read a portion of the tag I was pointing to.
She read “any antlerless white-tailed deer” out loud and then looked at me as if she had just seen a ghost.
After talking about the issue at hand she told me she must have drawn her second-choice tag when she thought she had drawn her first choice of an antlered deer tag.
She also told me she could not believe that no one at the contest noticed the pink stripe or said anything about it, including the person scoring all the deer.
I then looked at the tag closer to make sure it was properly notched, which it was.
I then asked what she shot it with.
She told me a Ruger 6.5 Creedmoor rifle as she pulled it out of the safe that we were standing next to.
I seized the rifle used to harvest the deer and a citation was issued for killing the wrong animal.
The hunter pled guilty to the charge and was ordered to pay a donation of $600 to the Report All Poachers program to get her rifle back.
Please make sure to check what tag you have received to make sure you are hunting the correct animal.
Happy hunting and good luck this fall.