Behind the Badge - The Ruse
The Ruse
District Game Warden Corey Erck
As waterfowl season neared, I found myself thinking of old waterfowl cases that I made years ago. One case involved a group of duck hunters from out of state.
I was patrolling one afternoon near Woodworth and noticed a pickup parked near a waterfowl production area. It didn’t take long before I noticed three men loaded down with hunting gear marching out of the WPA.
Because of the hilly nature of the land, I could not observe them the entire time. When I met them at the gate near where they had parked, one of the men was not carrying anything. As I did my compliance check, the man who showed up at the pickup without any gear was nervous and sweating profusely. He stated that he had not been hunting as his nonresident license dates were not yet valid. His two friends tried to distract me by asking questions about the limit of redhead ducks. The limit of redheads that year was two and the group had come out with two redheads and a few other ducks.
The two friends of the very nervous guy went on about how they wished they had known that they could shoot two more redheads. Unfortunately, I had not been able to watch the group of hunters prior to them walking out of the field, so I had not observed them hunting. Even though I suspected they had committed some violations, I did not have the evidence. I asked where they were staying while they were hunting in North Dakota and they gave me the name of a well-known hunting lodge in the area.
As they drove away, I got back in my patrol vehicle and followed them down the road until the next intersection, and I intentionally turned in a different direction. After they were out of sight I turned around and drove back to the gate at the WPA. I dropped my dog, Lilly, and went for a walk. I did not know the exact route they had walked on their way out of the WPA, but I had a general direction and had plenty of daylight to look around.
Within about 30 minutes Lilly and I came across a new semi-automatic shotgun and a handful of redhead ducks. I gathered up the shotgun and all the ducks that we could find and headed back to my pickup. When we got back, I put the shotgun in the backseat and ducks in the box. I got in to drive to Woodworth to the house where the hunters were staying. Before I backed out of the approach here came the hunters driving back down the road toward the WPA gate. After they pulled up, they started telling me that they wanted to go back and “top off” their limit of redheads. I told them that I had already found what they had stashed and that we had business to address. All three heads dropped in unison as they realized there was no point in continuing their ruse.
The one man was cited for hunting without a valid nonresident license, and his shotgun was placed under seizure. The other two received citations for exceeding the daily limit of redheads. In the end, they were polite and took their citations very well knowing that they had done wrong. This was the first day of their first trip to North Dakota duck hunting and I wonder how the rest of their hunting trip went.