Ive never understood the orange on private property but oh well. I'm glad we are not required to wear it in stand. That's just about plain dumb. But I don't see the big deal on orange on private property. I'm pretty sure a deer won't be holding a flash light.

Orange is not required while you are in the stand.

http://www.eregulations.com/alabama/guide/hunting-laws-regulations-information/

Hunters are not required to wear hunter orange when hunting from a stand ­elevated twelve (12) feet or more from the ground, when hunting in an enclosed box stand, when ­traveling in an enclosed vehicle, or when traveling on foot no more than twenty (20) feet ­directly between an operating enclosed vehicle and a stand where the hunter is exempt from the hunter orange requirement.

I've heard that explanation before, but...

I guess I look at it a little differently. The officers are getting paid anyway, right? Regardless of whether or not they write tickets, they are getting paid. So what additional expense is there for an officer going to court vs an officer going to the woods? None, as far as I can tell, since his salary is funded in way other than tickets.

So, the agency has money for salaries from another source plus any additional funds that come in to the agency through fines, no matter how small a percentage, thus, the agency has more money based on the number of tickets, and ultimately the amount of the fines that are paid.

In other words:
Agency funding from another source (whether tickets are written or not) + percentage of fine money = Total funding for agency

Therefore, the more money brought in by fines, the more money the agency has.

What am I missing???

Your missing that fines are not the incentive for writing tickets,enforcement is

I'm not missing that at all. I know that is their claim.

What is the reality though? Do fines increase their budget? Yes. Do fines increase their budget even if they say it is not an incentive? Yes.

The mere fact that they say the salaries are funded by some other means shows that the wardens will get paid whether they write tickets or not. They can't claim that it "cost" them to go to court when no additional funds are required. They get paid if they go to court or go to the woods or go to the coffee shop.

THEREFORE, since they are getting paid anyway, the percentage of money they get from the fines is in addition to the salary money and INCREASES their budget.

Anyone can say anything, but I can assure you that agencies try to maximize their budgets.

Years ago, an ex Auburn coach, Eddie Gran had a place next to us. He has a special needs daughter. She has since passed. Kid wanted to kill a deer in the worst way. Eddie set up a blind and yes, put some corn out. GW wrote him a ticket while the kid is there crying in a wheelchair. He broke the law, yes, but dam, can't you look the other way sometimes.

Of course not. Government has to get involved, create board and count dead deer. Then there's paperwork, ect... silly you.

Probably a bammer fan officer pissed about 6 in a row.

That works until your neighbor kills the 11 point you've had on camera for 2 years at Midnight, over a corn pile...lol

I refuse to believe he would cheat like that {sarcasm}

Ha... actually I think you are correct. Jeff Brown. Tallapoosa County

I wouldn't of wrote that ticket.

I don't know many that would. I actually think there was a bit of a pissing contest going on. I really do believe Jeff was a rabid Alabama fan and was out to get Eddie. The kid passed away a little while later and Eddie sold the place. It was a bad deal.

In all my years on the job I never had any pressure put to me to write more tickets...by anyone. I had Capts send me to areas of complaints to work, esp on nighthunting.

Montgomery sent out a notice for us to concentrate on working bait one time. Before you think this is pressure to write more tickets, know that bait cases are prolly the most time consuming violation to work. They eat up the 40 hr clock...making it harder to make other cases.

Personally I felt that my job was to gain compliance with the laws/regs by whatever means worked. If education worked, then good. If I could talk to someone and get them to comply, well that was good. Some folks needed to be ticketed, some hardheads needed to be ticketed a LOT, some needed to go to jail. A couple went to prison. It was all about compliance to me.

We were never under any kind of quota on number of cases to make. In fact I had pressure from some to reduce the number of cases I made. WTH?

Actually going to court DOES reduce the number of cases one could make. Court costs time, time off the 40 hr work week. Time that could of been used to make more cases...so loss of income to the Dept. See how that works??

That's good to know. I don't know you, never met you, but it sounds like you were a pretty reasonable guy. I think/hope that is the case with most, yet sometimes the encounters that others have had, leaves me scratching my head.

In the late '90s I was duck hunting with a group of guys. We had a banner day and killed 41 ducks: mallard hens/drakes, gads, bluebills, the works. Everyone met back at the truck and threw all the ducks into a pile, stood around catching up, etc.

Game warden pulls up. How y'all doing, looks like a good morning. No, don't need to see licenses or such. And then this:

"Who's ducks are these?"

We stood there looking around like "Duh, ours you dingdong." Someone finally said, "Ours" and everyone kinda laughed.

"No, which ones in this pile are yours," and he pointed to one of us. "Which ones are yours, and yours, and yours?"

He was firm but informative, letting us know that because they weren't separated he had know knowledge of whether someone shot 18 or two, or 10 mallard hens or none, and although the big pile looked cool for photos and such that it wasn't a good idea.

Instead of citations, which he could have written, that education lesson still lingers and always will. He didn't shirk his duty, IMO. He made the best lasting impact in that situation.

2 sides to every story,when someone posts a GW story.you are just hearing 1 side. Every one wears their own unique set of rose colored glasses. Just saying

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Agree with that. My dad was good friends with Warden Don Herring down here when I was growing up. The stories of "what really happened" seldom matched up with the story the perpetrator was telling.

thats the dang truth....

Clem, I checked some duck hunters one morning with a pile of ducks in the boat. Back when there was was a point system. I told em to sort out who killed what. After 8 er 10 tries I told one of em to claim the extra ducks and we'd settle on that.

If there weren't hunters there wouldn't be the $ for game wardens. Some game wardens need to realize that their livelihood is 100% dependent on hunters.