I have a friend who scooped up tons of saw tooth oak acorns from our church lot & took them to the woods where he had not one single sawtooth oak tree planted and the dirty green jean man ticketed him for bathing. True story.

Corn is natural too!

I've got to quess that these folks that are getting ticketed are hunting properties with a history of violations. There's a lot lot of ground for them to cover for them to just randomly find some acorns where they aren't supposed to be. Either that or some trouble making neighbors dropped a dime on them.
We've been hunting the same private leased land for about 20 years and have never had an encounter with a game warden

Legal, no. But if you put out white oak acorns under a white oak tree and nobody sees you I doubt a ticket is ever written as it can't be proved (as long as they are scattered and not in a pile). Put them out in a pine thicket or under a red oak tree and then something can be proved.

I don't know about where you hunt, but my white oaks quit dropping close to a month ago and are long gone.

It wouldn't take Scooby Doo and his crack team of detectives to figure out a bare tree isn't dropping acorns either.

I'd bet that no GW from anywhere is going to find those acorns IF you scatter em out pretty good, not a damn pile at the base of a tree.

That's what he gets for bathing in public.

White oaks at my dads place still dropping like crazy. Acorns can lay on the ground after they fall off... Scooby Dooby Doo!

White oaks don't lay on thenground long here. They get ate.

I will add that finding where somebody was scattering acorns, and being able to prove it in a court of law could vrery well be two different things.