Technologically Challenged
Modern technology has had a tremendous impact on the hunting and fishing world in recent years. From being able to watch a fish on a screen swim up to and take your bait to having a trail camera send pictures of your target buck to your cell phone in real time, it seems there’s nothing it hasn’t affected.
One other area it has impacted is hunting license sales. Not long ago, if a hunter or angler was going to buy a license, they were restricted to a store’s business hours. Now, if you have an internet connection and a credit card, you can buy a hunting or fishing license 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. While this is incredibly convenient, it has led to a few interesting incidents for me over the years.
A few years back I was on patrol in October when I saw a group of pheasant hunters spread out and walking a field. I parked next to their vehicle and watched as everyone in the field made their way toward me. I don’t think it took long for them to realize who I was as suddenly, everyone had huddled up.
It appeared one guy had his phone out and everyone else was looking at it. After a few minutes, the group spread out again and continued their walk. When the group returned to the truck, I performed a license check. One of the hunters told me his hunting license was on his friend’s phone and had his friend pull it up. W
hen I looked at his license, I saw it was purchased that day. I was later able to confirm his license purchase was time stamped a few minutes earlier in our licensing system. When I questioned him about this, he admitted he forgot to purchase his license and remembered this when he saw me parked by their truck.
Another time I was checking anglers at a popular fishing lake in south central North Dakota. It was a busy day and there were a lot of anglers coming off of the water. When I contacted a boat with two who had just pulled off of the water, one of the men jumped out of the boat and made a mad dash for the toilet. The other guy told me his buddy really had to use the bathroom.
Because it was so busy, I checked the second guy, got the first guy’s name, and then told him I would check his partners license later on the computer if I got tied up with another check.
I moved on to checking other boats before I got a chance to get back to them. After things calmed down, I got around to checking the other guy’s license on my computer.
It was then that I realized his license was purchased a few minutes earlier and his mad dash to the toilet probably had more to do with not having a fishing license rather than a call of nature. I was able to catch up to the two men down the road where the first guy admitted he had been fishing without a license that day and had in fact purchased his license while he was in the bathroom.
The ability to purchase your license at any hour of the day or night is a huge benefit to the sportsmen and women of North Dakota. At the end of the day though, you still must have that license bought before you partake in North Dakota’s hunting and fishing opportunities.
- Game Warden Erik Schmidt