technique. Most of you blatant cheaters already know. The point is, once this was leaked, everyone and his dog was buying that particular brand and model of gun so they could all put one over on Mr. Warden and abuse the system. Har har har. Excess ducks and geese died by the millions. Same thing happens when Mom, Grandma and the family labrador apply for limited deer tags in trophy units. “No officer, Grandma’s the one hunting trophy mule deer back there by the truck. I’m just out here shooting jackrabbits and hoping to scare a buck her way!” Some grandkids are loving and selflessly helpful like that. Break out the Eagle Scout badges. Then there’s the trespass issue. We had this excuse nailed as kids. “The Johnson farm? What? No, we talked to a farmer back there in a cornfield and he gave us permission. Which field? I’m not real sure anymore. They all kinda
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look alike. But it was just an hour or two ago and he said sure, go ahead. Hunt all you want. We didn’t have any idea this was the Johnson farm.” That approach was usually good enough to skate. Sometimes, usually, we got a good butt chewing, but never a ticket, and that encouraged us to continue the ruse. And that’s my point. You let people slip by on sympathy or technicalities – you try to be understanding and give them the benefit of the doubt – and they’ll walk all over you. Next thing you know they’re killing an over-limit of ducks with six-shot 12 gauges, dropping elk at 2-miles with 50 BMGs, filling a dozen elk tags for the neighbors and poaching on a Hollywood mogul’s dude ranch. On last thing. Some years ago I entered a Fish & Game office and asked them to sell me the requisite licenses, permits and tags to hunt turkeys in Can’tmiss County. They printed out the tags, I forked over the money and ahuntin’ I did go. The day after, I got a call from the game warden. “Heard you were hunting in Can’tmiss Country yestiddy. That right?” “Yessir yer honor sir.” “D’ja git one?” “No sir yer honor sir.” “That’s good ‘cause the season’s closed in Can’tmiss County.” I was confused, if not dumbfounded. “Then why’d the people at your Fish & Game headquarters sell me license and tags for Can’tmiss County? I told them I wanted to buy whatever I legally needed to hunt turkeys yesterday in Can’tmiss County!” “Those people? You can’t trust those city slickers to know the game laws and seasons. You gotta read the regulations. Ignorance of the law is no excuse.” At least not for us, anyway. Book ‘em, Dan’l. Book ‘em.
Winter 2013
ILLUSTRATION: COURTNEY BJORNN
of the annual hunting regulations, volumes one through ten. All applicable laws, rules, subsets, interpretations and hints are located therein, all 1,376 of them. Plain as day. Black on white. And there’s a different Regulation Book for each state. Read ‘em and weep. So okay, maybe it’s a bit much when Mr. Macho Game Warden slaps the cuffs on poor Little Nathan for forgetting the plug in his shotgun, but life’s tough and the sooner Little Nathan learns to play by the rules, the easier life will be for him. Besides, if we let Nathan off for youthful inexperience, we could let his Uncle Jake off for partying too late the night before. We could let Grandpa slip through because he’s getting old and forgetful and we could let Grange float because he magnanimously loaned his gun to Nathan’s sister and borrowed his brother’s unplugged gun at the last second. And he was so busy running the boat and setting the decoys and instructing Nathan in safe gun handling and the basics of telling a mallard from a pintail at 100 yards that his brain was too preoccupied to think about checking for a danged plug in his own gun, even if he never took it out of its case. Cut him some slack, Mr. Warden! It’s not like he was filling the boat with quadruple limits of whooping cranes. Well, maybe I’m exaggerating a trifle. But you get my point, eh? Game laws are on the books for a reason. As soon as we start fudging them, the moment we begin winking and letting certain things slip, someone discovers it’s open season on the rules. It’s like that old cartoon showing the two guys fishing from a rowboat with a mushroom cloud rising on the horizon: “You know what this means, Ralph? No closed season and screw the limit!” I remember some years back when waterfowlers discovered a certain shotgun could be loaded with four shells even though the magazine was plugged to hold just two. I won’t describe the gun or
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