Fishing Forum

I was looking at the AZ big game regs for the upcoming season (wishful thinking....school won't let me hunt elk down here for at least two more seasons) and I came across some advice in the proc that makes a lot of sense. It reads as follows....

[#0000ff][size 1]"Unfortunate incidents and oversights do occur. If you should find yourself in violation of any laws or rules while hunting please contact the Operation Game Thief hotline to report it. It certainly is more beneficial to report a violation yourself than have a Game Ranger discover it in the field, or have another party report it, and certainly more understandable to the judicial system and the Arizona Game and Fish Commission."
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[#0000ff][size 1][#000000][size 2]I'm sure that there are indeed guys out there that make honest mistakes every year. I am a very careful sportsman, but it is nice to know that if I ever accidentally break a wildlife law in AZ, that I might get the benefit of the doubt if I do the right thing and report it might self. From what I have seen, I'm not so sure that I would get that kind of treatment in Utah. Don't get me wrong...I'm not endorsing stupidity, I just believe that not everything is black and white and that wildlife regulations don't necessarily need to promulgate strict liability offenses. [/size][/#000000][/size][/#0000ff]
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It is possible to break the law unintentionally. I did it. I was hunting on Unit 1 at Farmington Bay, and had 6 teal in possession. Some more birds came in and I shot, not realizing until too late that there was another bird well behind the one I aimed at. Two birds fell, the farther one just crippled.

The only truly sportsmanlike thing to do was to go after the cripple, which I did. So now I had 8 birds in possession. What to do? I took them home and ate them. Perhaps I should have turned myself in, but I didn't. It was truly an accident, and hopefully won't ever happen again.
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With fish....I'd say that it's pretty easy not to go over a limit. However, with hunting it's not always that easy. Unfortunately there is no such thing as a "shoot and release." As Paddler has pointed out, sometimes there are freak instances where an innocent action turns into violation.

I have a story similar to his. I was two birds away from a seven duck limit when a pair of gadwall came gliding into the spread. I pulled up and took ONE shot. I had been so focussed on the gaddies that I didn't notice the huge flock of teal coming in behind me. There were easily 50 birds in the flock and as I pulled the trigger they passed right behind the gaddies. That one shot brought down one big gaddie and three teal. I was shocked. I also harvested them and would have been willing to take the ticket had I been checked, but I knew that there was no way that any warden was going to believe that story. Should I have been paying closer attention? Yes, there's no doubt about it...there's no excuse for not being alert while carrying a firearm. But did I have a culpable state of mind? No way.

I almost went way over the line last September. A couple of days into the dove hunt I decided to cut out of school early and catch the evening shoot. As I was going out the door I grabbed the little pamphlet that they publish the dove regs in and something caught my eye. In Arizona, the dove hunt closes at noon during the first season! I've never heard of such a thing! It never even occured to me to look at the itty bitty footnote at the bottom of the page.
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I though that only fisher-men could tell stories like that[][][]
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When I was younger a friend of the family (also my hunter safety teacher) was deer hunting with us. He came over a ridge and saw a nice buck standing broadside. He took his time, took a good rest, made sure of his target and his background, and made the shot. To his surprise, two deer fell over. There had been a smaller doe perfectly silouetted behind the buck and his bullet had passed through the buck and killed the doe also (this was a buck only area). Rather than leave the doe in the woods he feild dressed it and brought it out. At camp we discussed what he should do. The consesus was that he should wait until the middle of the night to avoid any check stations, take both deer home, reduce them to cut and packed meat, and forget that it had ever happened. He wouldn't have anything to do with that plan, so first thing in the morning he packed up both deer and went looking for a check station where he could turn himself in to the Idaho Fish and Game. I guess that he thought they would go easy on him. WRONG!! They immediately confiscated his rifle and hunting equipment, both deer, and almost his vehicle. They gave him the maximum fine and took his hunting privledges away for a few years. He never taught hunter safety again either. I learned an important lesson from my hunter safety teacher (and the IFG) on that hunting trip.
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