Neat brain-fart.....I hope....

[Big Muddy]

Another round of rain and storms on the way this weekend, so I went to the lakehouse....just got in a couple of hours ago from 2 days of pre-fishing the storms....this was my first trip to the lakehouse that I absolutelty refused to do any work....all I did was crappie fish, and trying to learn the lake....brought home 16 slazzabs.

Anywho, as I was leaving to go down to the pier, this morning, I tossed my wallet on top of the dresser, like always....I hate, having to sit on my wallet, while fishing all day....I've never had my license checked by any of the green-jeans boys, here in MS, so I just leave my wallet at home.

Then, I remembered, this ain't MS....I'm fishing Arkie water, and the Arkie green-jeans boys might just be out there, checking fishing licenses.

Sooooo, I got this brain-fart....I went back inside, and took photos of my fishing license, boat registration, and my driver's license, with my cellphone camera.

I hope it holds up to their scrutiny, if I ever get checked, but at least I'm not having to sit on my wallet, all day long.

[Captain]

I can see that one going either way. But at least they would have your license number to run and check out.
Guess it depends on which side of the bed they got up from that day.
Take Care, Captain

Sent from my iPhone using Forum Runner

[BarryBobPosthole]

Fish cops are 99% assholes. You'll get a ticket and have to see a judge. You're odds are better there. Only 98% of judges are assholes.

BKB

[Big Skyz]

That won't fly here.

[LJ3]

I have to say our fish cops are pretty cool, from my personal experience. Md & Va both. The only time I actually got written up was when I didn't have my canoe registered with numbers when I ran my trolling motor on it. I had no freaking idea that law applied to a friggin canoe. Even then, they guy was really nice, told me how to git 'r done. I got it done, had my court date and he told the judge that I was cooperative, had all my safety equipment and was good to go. Charges dropped.

The other dozen or so times I've been stopped on rivers around here was just a safety check. Which chaps my ass but if you're not an asshole and realize it's just part of the deal, it's not a problem.

Some of the busier lakes in Va have fish cops that are known to be pretty big assholes. Given the drunken, highspeed, careless maggotry they have to deal with, I'm not sure I can say I blame them :)

[BarryBobPosthole]

Growing up, I had two uncles that worked for the Arkansas Game and Fish, one was a state trapper and the other was a game warden. Both worked as game wardens though. (and both were related to me by marriage) Both of them were buttholes. Most of my family avoided them during hunting seasons simply because they always made it a point to stop you and check you if they recognized you. and I knew the wardens around the county I grew up in since I was out and about the whole county with rifle, shotgun, and fishing pole. I wouldn't piss on any of them if they were on fire.
I don't envy them the job they have to do. But I also think that people can go about these jobs a hell of a lot differently than they do. One of our most celebrated wardens was a guy named Claudie Clubb who at one time held the world flathead catfish record with a rod and reel. It was well known amongst the people who knew him that he took the fish from a gill net and claimed he caught it. That's what I'm talking about. His son was a warden too and stopped by our deer camp often to accuse us of running deer dogs (which we never did) and generally acted like an ass every time we saw him. It made you cheer for the poachers.
No love lost for those guys from me. I hope it is different in your state. It ain't in Oklahoma or Arkansas, at least the parts I've hunted and fished in.

BKB

[LJ3]

Sounds like you got our share of assholes, then... maybe that's why it's not been too bad for me :)

[Buckrub]

That won't fly..........but do what I do.........when fishing or hunting, I get a thin wallet (My daughter gave me one of those Duct Tape wallets as a joke, but man it's perfect for this) and put in my DL, my CCW license, my Combo Fishing Hunting license, and that's it. It's so thin, I never know it's back there. But you do have to remember to change it back, or carry just it......... I don't carry my money in my wallet anyway, it's on a money clip.....so my big wallet is just pictures and credit cards. No reason to carry that in the woods, or in a boat.

[Big Skyz]

Eddie if you weren't so dadblamed flush with cash that wallet wouldn't be so uncomfortable. ;)

[Sunshine]

Won't work here, either.

We were checked, in our walleye boat.
Besides making sure our license were good, had to produce all safety equipment and boat papers.

Guy was a jerk. Everything I could do, to keep from telling him off.

He even looked in our live well.

Why don't you just put your wallet in a lock box on the boat? That's what we do!

[LJ3]

I do understand an occasional safety check... but now that I think about it; unless they have a reason to believe we've committed a crime they should go fuck themselves. Why should the water be different than the road? Why doesn't there have to be a probable cause or suspicion of committing a crime?

Cap'n? Deppity? LawDog? Why you guys gotta be so oppressive to us kind folk enjoying the outdoors?

[Buckrub]

Cause they don't have xray vision and can't see inside your livewell.

[BarryBobPosthole]

I have no issues with them checking my stuff or my livewells. Its getting wooled around like I am guilty of something and being accused of crazy shit that pisses me off. They can all bugger off. (in Terry's vernacular)

BKB

[Buckrub]

Yeah. Mr. Green Jeans does seem to have the attitude "Every hunter/fisherman I see is guilty, I just need to figure out what of"........ and yeah, I hate that.

[Bwana]

Looks like good old ND might be addressing just this issue during the current legislative session:

HB 1195 - Introduced by Rep's Porter, Hawken, Louser, Rohr, Streyle, Weisz; Sen's Klein, Lyson. Would allow an individual to show proof of a hunting or fishing license in paper or electronic format. Passed house 87-0. Passed senate 46-0.

[Buckrub]

Well, the GEICO pig shows the cop an electronic version of his policy!

[BarryBobPosthole]

Discussions about this were more fun with Chessie around to poke at.

BKB

[Buckrub]

I apologize to the world for running him off.

[Thumper]

We many times have coupons e-mailed to us for discounts at certain establishments. With most of them nowadays, we simply show them the e-mail on our i-Phone and they accept it. We were out shopping around Tampa once and received a great coupon offer at Outback, so we stopped by to ask if they'd accept the i-Phone image. They said they needed an actual "hard copy" for their accounting, but said we could simply e-mail it to them and the waitress can go into the office and print it. We did that and enjoyed a nice meal at 50% off!

[LJ3]

He was a duck counter, you were a duck watcher. You were both boring us to tears... coulda gone another way. You two stayed and argued and the rest of us bailed :)

You're bofe good eggs in my book!

I went fishing with him once after he left the site. I think his sister still runs a charter service on the bay. I may just see him on the bay one day, who knows?

[Buckrub]

You mean Steve? You mean the little guy????

[Thumper]

He was a duck counter, you were a duck watcher. You were both boring us to tears... coulda gone another way. You two stayed and argued and the rest of us bailed :)

You're bofe good eggs in my book!

I went fishing with him once after he left the site. I think his sister still runs a charter service on the bay. I may just see him on the bay one day, who knows?

I think I remember you two dufebutts forcing me to drink alcoholic beverages, eat some weird foreign food and watch nekkid Asian wimmins pole-dancing ... or sumpin' like that. ;)

[Thumper]

In fact ... now I remember what a-holes youse dufes REALLY were! You guys got off work and went to the joint where we were gonna meet. Since you buttheads got there early, you parked on the street. You called and told me to park in the parking garage across the street 'cause there was no more street parking available. So, I left my truck in the parking garage, we got ... ummm ... well, we had a few beers, ate some Thai Food and walked next door to the strip joint where we had a few more refreshments. When we finally decided we'd had enough, you dicks left and I walked over to get my truck from the parking garage ... WHICH WAS CLOSED AND LOCKED UP LIKE FRIGGING FT. KNOX!! (with my truck inside!)

I finally banged on the door so hard a janitor heard me and somehow, between the two of us, we got the gate to the garage open so I could go home. Thanks a lot jerk-offs! ;)

[LJ3]

I have no recollection, you must be confusing me with someone else :)

[Thumper]

Hmmm, the only others I could blame would be Carnivore or Bubbles. What a coinky-dink ... neither are here to defend themselves ... heck, Chessie ain't even around ... I think you're left holding the bag dude!

I should'a fed you to those gators when I had the chance! :D

[Sunshine]

Holie crap how many pictures, of the GH group, you got downloaded? I don't remember that guy!

[BarryBobPosthole]

He's one of the only NOVA guys I never got a chance to meet.

BKB

[Thumper]

He officially went by "Chesapeake" Sunny.

[LJ3]

I decided to remove it to protect his privacy. Took me about 3 minutes to find him online.

Heck, Sunny, I have GPS coordinates that give me a camera view of your underwear drawer. KIDDING! :)

[Buckrub]

The big one???

I met Chessie too. Probably added to his reasons for leaving. I really am sorry.

[Thumper]

He's one of the only NOVA guys I never got a chance to meet.

BKB

He's a good guy Barry. I ran around with The Lenster, Chessie, Carnivore and Bubbles quite a few times. Even got to meet "Danny". ;)

[Sunshine]

I remember that name.

Lol you be spying in my bedroom skylight!!!! Lol

[BarryBobPosthole]

Were they granny panties or thongs, Len?

BKB

[LJ3]

Couldn't really tell... Hard to see them under all dungeon stuff in that drawer.

[Sunshine]

Just like GH topics!

Start with wallet and license.

Then end up with my undies!!!!
Sheessss :D

[Buckrub]

Why not? YOUR end is up your undies, why shouldn't ours be? :booty

[Niner]

Put yer wallet in yer front pocket. Actually, a lot of men wind up with hip problems from sitting on a fat wallet for years.


Speaking of fish cops......
One time yeaaaarrrssss ago, me and some buds were drift-fishing for trout on the Chattahoochee river north of Atlanta.
Way down the river, we could see a fish-cop and some dude on the bank, and could see the FC was writing. As we drifted closer, the FC was still writing....and as we drifted by them, he was STILL writing. One of us hollered out to the dude, "What'd you do wrong?". The dude hollered back....."Got outta bed this morning." We all laughed out asses off...but the FC was STILL writing his tickets as we drifted outta sight. I can only imagine the charges.....where the dude was fishing on the bank he was trespassing. That section of the river is artificial only. There's an 8 fish limit. You can only fish one rod at a time. I am sure there's other stuff that he could have been doing wrong as well....but that's just off the top of my head.

Down here the wardens have been known to slip through the woods and try to catch folks sitting in their stand without orange on, or hunting over bait and such. I am pretty sure they can only do that on the WMA's and on "leased" hunting land. I could be wrong, but I don't think they can come on private property without a search warrant. Like I said I COULD be wrong, so I try to follow all of the silly rules even on my own land.

[Thumper]

Well, like Hunter always used to say ... bring up a subject, and I probably have pics to back up my crazy story! ;)

Here's pictorial proof of the difference between "fish cops" and "regular cops".

One year 6 of us were in Northern Ontario ... waaaay up north ... north of the Arctic Circle to be exact. We were so far out in the boonies they had to pipe in sunlight. The lake we were camped on had a small boat ramp, but it was 30 miles from our campsite (a small log cabin). Water was the only way to get to us ... there were no roads. My life-long Ohio deer hunting partner and I were the only two that were bear hunting, the others were there to fish only. We all fished if my bud and I weren't hunting. We had no refrigeration and pretty much lived off the fish we caught, plus the canned and dry goods we brought with us. We built ourselves a live tank with some sticks and chicken wire we'd brought with us. We ate Walleye for breakfast, lunch and dinner! I'm not normally much of a fish eater, but that Walleye is GOOD stuff and I could easily have eaten it FOUR times a day! Anyway, we had three boats with us ... just your typical aluminum 12-footers with 15 hp outboards. (it was a MAJOR journey to the boat ramp!) So, with 6 people and 3 boats, we'd pair up and fish anytime we wanted. We'd simply drop the fish we caught in the livewell when we came back in and never really thought to try counting them ... they were FOOD. When mealtime came around, we'd take a landing net and scoop out 8-10 fish for a good meal, clean 'em up and start cooking. Can't get much fresher than that.

One morning we had a batch of fish cleaned and were cooking them up for breakfast. Then we heard a hell of a racket and noticed a dang fishcop float plane landing on the lake. He taxied over to our camp, jumped out, tied the plane off and paid us a little visit. He was a nice enough guy, we chatted a bit, he checked all our licenses and sat down for a cup of coffee. BUT ... before he left, he counted all the filets we had prepped for our breakfast. Everything was fine 'til he walked back out to his plane and spotted our live box! He made us scoop every dang fish out'ta that live box and throw them up on the bank. We were over limit of course 'cause he added the filets we were frying up for breakfast! What REALLY sucked is he made us throw every over-limit fish back in the lake and by this time, they were all floating belly-up! Then he announced he was going to be writing some citations. I will say, he did give us a bit of a break ... he said before anyone says another word, he wants to make one thing clear. When he askes whose fish they are, if we say they're "ours" ... he'll be writing SIX citations. If all those fish belong to only ONE of us, he'll only be writing ONE citation. My partner immediately spoke up and said all the fish were his. He got nailed with a $150 ticket! Ok, I guess you could say he cut us a break ... but what really sucks is, if he'd showed up AFTER we ate breakfast, we'd have been legal. Since he counted the filets we were cooking, we were over limit!

Here's a pic of my partner (ex-FIL) getting the ticket from that Canuckian jerk-off!

898

Now for the difference between a fish cop and a "regular" LEO ...

One year I was up in Ohio for deer season. My partner (the same one getting the ticket in the pic above) and I had been out scouting and the Sherriff happened by and stopped to chat. We invited him up to the house for a cup of coffee. We chatted a while and I was introduced as the SIL from Florida up there for my annual hunt. We told him we'd been scouting for a few days and would soon be setting up our stands for opening day (the following Monday morning). He asked if we wanted to see a MONSTER buck and we were all ears! He left, but came back that night to pick us up. We hopped in the backseat of his patrol car and he took us a few miles out on this desolate back road, slowed down and hit the spotlight on his door. Out in a field, grazing with a bunch of does was a HUGE buck. He had to go at least 12-points (very easily could have been 14 or so). He told us he's there EVERY night and we should try to get a couple stands in the area if possible. We did hunt the area a couple of days but I think once season kicked in, that ol' boy climbed into a rabbit hole someplace! ('Course, that's how they get big I suppose) We never saw him again while gun season was open.

So ... THAT is the difference between a cop and a fish cop! ;)

Pic of us having coffee (back when I not only had hair, but it even had color in it! Circa 1988 I think)

899

[BarryBobPosthole]

I'm sure there's good ones and bad ones in every profession. Bad fish cops just seem to be the norm. It really doesn't seem to work that way with regular law enforcement as we see by the good folks we know in LE here on our site. Part of it might be that we go to the outdoors for more than just the act itself, but to get some recharge on our batteries and enjoy ourselves. And then along comes somebody who wants to rock our world.

Still, I don't like 'em.
BKB

[Thumper]

Yeah Barry, you're right. I've met both good and bad cops. Heck, I even knew a coupl'a bad cops when I WAS a cop! Same goes for fish cops also I suppose. Gator knew ALL the fish cops up north and we'd run into them many times during the nights we were out catching gators. Most of them were pretty cool ... but heck, we were actually kinda working for THEM anyway. Even then, there were a few pricks in the mix who'd give us a rough time.

Come to think of it, we were out one night and had Cappy with us when a couple'a fish cops saw our spotlight and came over to check us out. They tied up to our boat and we drifted a while just to b/s and share a cup of coffee. I have pics of them and Cappy around here someplace. They were cool dudes. It just seems like the balance is tilted more to the jerk-off side with fish cops.

What makes it tougher, they have more authority than the police or Sherriff's Dep't. They don't have to play by the same rules and can get away with much more crap than a regular cop is allowed.

[Buckrub]

Thinking on this, I guess I hadn't considered this before, but the number of times I have been stopped/checked when either hunting or fishing is...........very small. Actually, I can only remember 6 times total, and I'm almost 65. I can only remember Three times getting stopped by wardens while fishing. One was the most total jerk imaginable, and even kept asking us over and over "Where do you work?". We think the old guy was training the young guy, and had to be vigilant, I don't know. The other time this guy thought we were shocking fish (it was another boat), and gave us the riot act. Later he was arrested for selling drugs!!! The only other time, they stopped me on the water and were gone in 2 minutes, good guys. Of the times while hunting only one was a total jerk......I had a broke foot and up a deer stand, and he tried to make me come down and I wouldn't do it.

In 15 years they have been to our deer camp (that we know of) 2 times! Both times they speak, chit chat, and leave. Never check a license, nothing. We are accessible by any car that's made, 1/2 mile from pavement. Yet they don't bother us.

[Big Muddy]

Thump is correct, and down here, fish cops don't need a search warrant, even to enter your home....from what I hear, for instance, if they have probable cause that you possess over-the-limit fish or game, they just knock on your door, walk in, and check out your freezer(s)....same for your private land, they just hop over your fence, and walk up to your duck blind, like they own the place.

However, most of our fish cops are a little too fat and lazy to do much fence-hopping. ;)

[Buckrub]

Can't check the freezer here, or anywhere else in my home. Home is specifically exempt from any limit. You can stock up a million of anything in your freezer. SO, just freeze all your fish at the lake house and you're cool.

cut/paste:

Daily Limit −
The total limit of a certain fish species that may be taken in one day.
Possession Limit −
The total limit of a certain fish species that is in your possession
at any time, whether on your person or stored in another location. Fish and wild
game (other than migratory game birds) that have been processed and stored at a
residence do not count toward a person’s possession limit. A residence is defined
as a house or house trailer that is permanently in place and is owned, leased or
rented by an individual; it does not include mobile travel trailers, tents, vehicles or
temporary rental units (motels, lodges, cabins, resorts, etc.).

[Big Skyz]

Here's how I see it. In my lifetime I have had times when I really needed the help of policemen, the sheriff or deputies, firemen, and paramedics. Never, not once, have I ever "needed" a fish cop in any way shape or form. I don't anticipate I will ever have use for one in the future. I have had exactly one negative experience with a cop, actually a highway patrolman that was a dink. I was good friends with the law enforcement in that community and they couldn't stand him either. He was basically the Barney Fife of the department, and an embarassment to all associated with him. Anyway other than that "one" bad experience all my other interactions with public servants have been good, with the exception of fish and game officers. Every time I have to deal with a fish cop its always tense and I don't trust any of them. I don't care if they seem like the nicest person in the world they always looking for a way to screw a person over. It seems they have a universal attitude of "everyone is guilty", they just have to dig deep enough to find out what they are guilty of. I have had some extremely bad experiences with fish cops. For the most part I consider myself to be a decent and polite person. However if any of you are ever with me, and if we get checked by a fish cop, you will see a different side of me. I say very little and try to answer any questions they have with one or two word answers. I want them gone and out of my life as soon as possible. Brief encounters with them are the best one can hope for. This isn't because I'm guilty of anything. It's because I dont' trust them, I don't like them, and I have NO use for them. I realize that many of you have a different view of fish and game officers than I do, and that's fine, but I won't be changing my mind soon.