Goose check out incident

Tilla · 11-10-2002, 09:29 AM

A friend went to the ODFW goose check out station over a week ago with a single goose. He presented all the paperwork. Everything was fine with the exception that he had inadvertently filled out and dated properly on last years card. He had both cards in his wallet (like I do) and filled out the 2001-2002 card instead of the 2002-2003 card. The worker immediately called the state police to get someone to the station immediately! My friend pulled out his new tag and transposed the information onto it but Uh-Oh that was not going to do. After awhile it seemed that no state police were available so he was processed with his bird and set free. I sure he will get a call. It was an honest mistake, but pleaaase! What is the intent here?

11-10-2002, 10:27 AM

I taged a steelhead on my bear tag :shocked:

OneLastCast · 11-10-2002, 10:29 AM

I tagged my first two salmon on my spring turkey tag.

MountainLion84 · 11-10-2002, 03:03 PM

I tagged a sturgeon on my cougar tag

lightline · 11-10-2002, 09:14 PM

I about got in trouble this year for giving my Wash. lisc. to the state police. My problem was I was fishing on the willamette, the lady was bringing out her ticket book when I finally found my resident Oregon lisc. I stick my Wash. lisc. in a different location now. Keta,OneLastCast,corlin, thats good You folks made my day.

Flatfish · 11-10-2002, 09:22 PM

As bad as this sounds,it is a lot harder to catch the real bad guys in action and the police have really started to hammer the honest sportsman.One friend buys a sportspac and does not get his HIP done.Ticket.Nobody asked him to answer the HIP stiff when he dropped the 100 plus bucks on a sportspac.The cop does not think that we have a very honest hunter(everything else in order)angler here,just writes.I have heard of quite a few tickets for pencil instead of pen or wrong dates.Cmon.If it got tagged who cares if it is the 18th or the 19th?
I know the OSP has a tough job.But some of this is kinda getting silly.
Mark and the dog.

MarlinMark · 11-10-2002, 09:26 PM

That's the difference between crime fighting and infraction fighting. They are taking the easy way out. I'm sure they would like to catch a real criminal but, maybe they just don't know how.

MC

Capin' Dan · 11-10-2002, 09:56 PM

It has to do with the revenue they get off the tickets. I went to the check station on Sauvies Island for the opening of pheasant season this year. What I heard over the radio with all the state police and rent a cops that they brought in for that day made me sick. They were actually laughing and joking about the number of tickets that they were giving. This is targeting at its worst they go where they can get the biggest bang for the smallest amount of work that they have to do. For this reason I have probably hunted my last day at Sauvies Island and have lost a lot of respect for the folks that run that place. They never should have allowed the public to hear what they were saying. There is so much violet crime out there that could be solved if they would just put the effort into it. I know I'm venting here I just tired of being checked and double checked every time I come into a port or want to enjoy my sport. Just my .02 worth

GutshotApe · 11-11-2002, 04:21 AM

Correctly & properly (promptly) recording fish, tagging deer, etc. - in short, adhereing to the rules & regs - is important to do right. If so many people weren't trying to beat the system, maybe the cops wouldn't need to be so "CS". But many people will cheat if they can - they record fish in pencil then erase later, will avoid buying license&tag if they can get away with it, will put that slightly undersize shaker in the bilges, will shoot that little buck for "camp meat", etc, etc, etc. Too many people "just doin' their own thing".

I've been fishing & hunting for over 40 years and in all that time have received only one citation - and that was from a federal game cop for not having a federal duck stamp in my wallet when duck hunting - I had one but not on me. CS? Not really - it was all my fault. I explained why I didn't have the necessary stamp "on my person" and just about had the guy convinced, but he wrote me up anyway. How was that cop to know if I was lying or not? :whazzup:

That cost me 10 times the stamp's face value but was a good lesson and I haven't been caught breaking the law since.

Tilla · 11-11-2002, 07:55 AM

Gut Shot Ape,
In this particular case there was absolutely nothing to be gained by the guy. Of the two cards he had tucked in his wallet he filled in last years. When you fill in the blanks on the card, you turn it in and get a new one everytime you are successful.
To hunt the special NW goose area to have to go to class, pass a test. This guy legally shoots a bird, on the specified hunt day, between the specified hunting hours, using legal steel shot, records the time and date and initials it. He proceeds to a goose checkout location after hunting (before 6PM) takes his goose into the trailer and gets his chops busted! :shocked: Heck, you might even argue that the card he filled out was 2001-2002 and it is still 2002.
And he's a proud Viet Nam Vet!
But still you are right about it not being properly done.
I was thinking how this is a lot like operating a Jetsled. It's not a matter of if you might hit a rock, just a matter of when.

[ 11-11-2002, 08:57 AM: Message edited by: Tilla ]

Tilla · 11-11-2002, 07:57 AM

I've seen more than one guy walk in that station in the past with their birds and their paperwork not filled in. One got a warning, one got his card punched, but challenged it and got it back some weeks later. If they were trying to get away with something they wouldn't have walked right on in. This does go back a few years when the program was getting going. Can you imagine the Twilight Zone theme song in your head with your birds on the table and you reach for your unfilled out card! Doh! :shocked: Of course I wouldn't know anything about that.

[ 11-11-2002, 09:09 AM: Message edited by: Tilla ]

Sir Reel · 11-11-2002, 08:15 AM

I took a boat load of family memebers out at B10 this year, my brother in law who is 8 years old was along and had never caught a salmon yet. I got him into a several fish, 2 that were keepers. I didn't tag a fish that day making sure all my visiters were max'd out.

I get to the ramp and the washington game copy there is checking coolers. I spoke with him and we all shared our tags with him. Then I go back to work unloading the boat and turn around and he has my 8 year old Brother in Law in a conversation about how many fish he caught. I was a bit perplexed, he knew and he wasn't just being friendly.

I had nothing to hide, but this boy was sleeping much of the time, and sick; probably couldn't tell me how many he reeled versus which ones I bonked. He got it right however. I know if his story was out of sync we would've gotten a ticket.

Bounty Hunter · 11-12-2002, 07:34 AM

Only game violation I ever recieved was at the Suavie Island check out. First goose I ever shot didn't get tagged at the pit. That's what we do at the check out when they ID and measure your goose right? WRONG! No if's and's or but's. I got my ticket without a warning. I read the rules, I just thought that was still considered to be the field. I was shocked. As I left with my violation, the officer thanked me for being a good sport about it...

tailchaser · 11-12-2002, 08:39 AM

For some reason I have never been harrassed as bad as when I live in Klamath Falls going to school out at Miller Island bird hunting. It started when my lab found an immiture pintail (with no pins on its rear) from a hunter I watched drop it in the tulies earlier. We were on our way back to the check station so we threw it in. Well we were checking out and oopps, got one too many pinnies. :shocked: I tried to explain I hadn't shot it and even ventured enough to pull the dang pellets out of it to prove it, but it was in my possession so I got the ticket. But he explained the gamie was hunting that day and I might be able to explain it to him. I waited for 5 hours for this guy to turn out he didn't want to talk to me on his day off and left 4 hours earlier. He gave me the 275 buck ticket later that week for exceeding the bag limit. I wanted to thank the lab for that lack of beer fund back then but it wasn't his fault.

From that day on I was marked. I'd be pheasant hunting and they would skreetch to a stop and come out to check me for steel shot and anything else they could find. Make up BS rules about where I could be with a loaded gun or my dog on a leash and that kind of stuff and was a pain in my hiney for the rest of the year. Not once did they find anything illegal on me but I was through with them. The only good thing they did was kick a guy off from ever coming back that I thumped in front of the checkout for shooting at my dog when he had a bird pointed. He tried to beat me to the bird that my dog found. Anyhoo, I know the pains of being harrassed.

tc

GutshotApe · 11-12-2002, 11:25 PM

Tailchaser - I hunted a few times with Ed Ebbetson of Eugene who for decades always had a black Lab named Tish. He had a series of several different black Labs, all named Tish (kept things simple, I guess). Anyway, Ed used to hunt at Sauvies and one day after limiting out, Tish picked up two cripples on the way out. Ed put them with the rest of his birds. He got the same treatment at the checkout station: "You've exceeded the bag limit - that's a violation." Ed explained how he got the two extra ducks and pointed out that the regs state that wasting game is also illegal. He didn't tell the dog to retrieve the cripples but once she did, he was duty bound not to waste the birds. He must have been persuasive because they didn't write him up but I believe they did keep the two cripples. Ed passed away two years ago while hunting pheasants with his son in eastern Oregon - had a massive heart attack just when a big rooster flushed in front of him and his latest lab named Tish. Not a bad way to go.

Fishalot · 11-15-2002, 04:00 PM

I have the beat Miller Island tale to tell. First the regs state that you are not aloud on the hunting area with out checking in, 2nd you can't send a person out to hold a spot when that person has not checked in. Well that is just what the Fish & Wildlife guys were doing, their friends would check one person in while one went out to save a spot. We were so mad and after we figerd it out we chewed some hind in back at the station. All the other hunters were right there to back us up. If I remember right someone got in hot water for it and we got a letter telling us we were in the right :grin: .

Fishalot

Killertraylor · 11-15-2002, 11:46 PM

Another one to watch out for - which I've posted here before, and I think most of you know - is the HIP validation process. I had a hunting buddy who shot a crow last year when things were slow in the duck blind and one flew too close to us. We were checked by a state cop who saw that he was not "HIP validated for crow" and wrote him a citation for hunting without a valid license. I argued with the cop, telling him that they ask you, "Do you intend to hunt crows this year" when you get your license. He honestly answered the question, and then later changed his mind. The question should be phrased in a manner that you know you can't shoot a crow unless you answer "yes". I always answer yes to all the questions now - who knows when I might have a chance at a Black Brandt????