Behind the Badge - The Wrong Dakota
The Wrong Dakota
District Game Warden Erik Schmidt
In October of 2021, I spent my birthday checking hunters trying their luck at hunting the numerous game species North Dakota has to offer in fall. I know a few people who may try to “duck” out from working on their birthday, but I tend to be the opposite. Most years, I try to make it a point to work on my birthday. An October birthday is a great excuse to spend time outside and my job as a game warden just so happens to allow me to spend a lot of time outside.
On that particular day I found myself working in the northern portion of my district a few miles south of Alkaline Lake when I saw what looked to be a couple trucks with heavy duty dog carriers in the back parked next to a piece of Private Land Open To Sportsmen. I contacted the group of four hunters about the time they got done with their walk and got back to the truck.
As is customary, I performed a check of their game, licenses and equipment. One of the hunters showed me a pheasant he had shot on the walk and presented a confirmation email on his phone indicating he had purchased a hunting license. I was caught slightly off guard when I saw the email confirmation was for licenses purchased through the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks website. The licenses he purchased were a federal duck stamp and some other type of South Dakota hunting license for migratory game birds in that state.
Now, with my district bordering South Dakota, it's not uncommon for people who come to North Dakota to hunt to also purchase a hunting license in South Dakota to maximize their hunting opportunities. When I told the hunter I needed to see his North Dakota upland hunting license, he said the license information he presented was the only license he had purchased. When I said that he not only had the wrong license for hunting pheasants, he also had the wrong license for the state he was hunting.
He seemed slightly confused.
He proceeded to tell me he had flown into South Dakota the previous day before driving to North Dakota to go hunting. He seemed most confused about the difference between North Dakota and South Dakota. I found this odd because he was from one of the Carolinas, another pair of North and South states. His story made even less sense when I asked about the time and cost of his license purchase.
The time stamp on his email confirmation indicated he bought his South Dakota license that morning shortly before 6 a.m. When I asked him how much he spent on his South Dakota license, he thought it cost about $90. After a quick call to one of my South Dakota counterparts, I found out he spent $25 on a federal duck Stamp and $5 on a South Dakota nonresident migratory bird stamp.
I left my confused hunter with a citation for hunting in North Dakota without a license and a suggestion that if he wished to continue hunting in the state, he needed to purchase a North Dakota nonresident upland game license, which he did later that evening.