Some game wardens can be real jerks. Had a run in with one of those in CO when I was about 23 years old and on active duty. It resulted in the only ticket I have ever received from a warden. Happened this way:
I was duck hunting with my father and another guy on a public reservoir in CO about 100 yards from a refuge that didn't allow hunting. We got the decoys out before first light and ducks were literally pouring into out set. About an hr after daylight we watched a CO DOW truck set up about 500 yards away and he guessed he was probably watching us. CO used a point system back then where different species of ducks had a point value and when you reached 100 points you were limited out. I has shooting good that day and limited early and decided to go stomp around in some fields for pheasants and quail so I left the other 2 in the blind.
While looking for pheasants I heard a few shots from the blind. Didn't get any pheasants and returned to the blind about 2 hrs later. Game warden truck was still there. My father told me he had hit a duck that made it to the refuge but he couldn't find it. Since I was limited I told him I'd go look for the bird. This was totally legal since the refuge is public land and I did not take a gun with me. I found a dead goldeneye drake in a small pond and picked it up thinking it was the bird Dad had hit. But when I got to the blind he told me he had hit a widgeon and not a goldeneye. I didn't know how long the bird had been dead and dropped it beside the blind. And then here came the warden!
He pulled up and made us safe the weapons and then walked over to the goldeneye and picked it up and told me I was over limit. I explained how I came to have the bird (and remember the other guys could cover it with their points if need be) and the warden said he didn't care. He knew I had already limited out and said when I went to the refuge I had rendered the bird under my possession and was therefore over the daily limit. The fact I was trying to recover a wounded bird (which is required by law) was irrelevant to him and he wrote me a ticket. I was active duty at the time and the ship was leaving on deployment so I couldn't go to court. Ended up pleading no contest and paid $168 fine (this was many years ago). Since then I have never gone to look for any animal someone else has wounded.
Found out later that the game warden in question was new from college and was so overhanded in how he handled things that they had to move him to another office in the state because he was notorious for writing BS tickets and the locals complained. Never had problems with any other game warden in the 13 states I have hunted. Just that one guy.
I got mad just reading that. Must have got a lot of ass beatings in high school or something.
