I’ve ran into some real winners before. Most of the bigger Delta Bravos stay pretty close to the waterfowl WMAs, where they can sit in their truck and catch guys on their way down the main road headed out.
one time I saw a ticket wrote for an over the limit pintail possession, when it was 1 per hunter, per day. The catch was he had one drake pintail already, the other “pintail” was a hybrid drake mallardXpintail cross. Green head, pintail bill, feet and tail feathers. Beautiful bird. The guy was thrilled about his duck. Officer took all the guys birds and wrote him a ticket. I was 13 when I saw that. Didn’t know the guy, but I was extremely angry for him. Hope he got out of that one.
another time I saw a “failure to tag at point of kill” ticket wrote, regarding a swan on center dike. A guy sky busted one and it glided out on the ice. The dude was scared to death of ice and didn’t want his dog out on it either. His buddy offered to go get it. Left his gun on the bank. Spent 30 minutes trying to run down this wounded swan. Finally catches it and drags it back to the dike, still alive. The hunter, then takes the bird from his buddy and dispatched it, right as an DWR officer truck pulls up to them. Apparently they watched the whole thing go down and noticed the guy didn’t kill it, when he got ahold of it. Catch was, had he done so, I feel they would have nailed him for poaching, since he didn’t have a tag. As you can imagine, tempers flared rather quickly over the whole deal. I think that’s the closest I’ve ever seen someone come to going to jail for hitting a cop. The whole damn dike was getting involved on that deal before too long. It was everyone against the two cops. We left before it all was over. But the last I saw, the officer was holding the swan and being arrested was on the table for disorderly conduct and failure to comply.
I could go on for pages about these kinds of deals. Yes there are a few good ones out there. I’ve had many pleasant encounters with them. But I’ve had my fair share and witnessed my fair share of the “other encounters” as well. The one thing I’ve learned is, don’t ever admit to more than they are questioning you about and don’t give them any more information than they already have. All you’re doing is putting the noose around your neck by yourself. The little statement “tell us what happened, what you know and any other details that might be important. We will help you, if you help us.” That’s the biggest lie in the world.