IMPOSSIBLE!!!! From what most people on this site think, all Law Enforcement Officers are just people that were picked on when they were younger and now they are just looking to get back at everyone because they have a badge. It's a good thing WL&F agents also dont just sit at a launch and wait for hunters/fishermen to come back to check them.

Thank you for reporting this story. Too often, people only report when a LEO does something questionable. Very rarely is it made known the MANY helpful things that LEO's do for other people.

I have had my fair share of encounters with wildlife agents. a few years ago, those encounters were more on the negative side. negative attitudes from the agents, trying to find reasons to write tickets, better than everyone attitudes. my more recent encounters with agents has been positive. wl&f must have shuffled around the agents because now they are very helpful. there used to be a few bad apples around the pac area, but now they all seem to have possitive outlooks and one even helped me load up my small boat into the back of my truck.

there is always one or two good ones out the bunch. Whats the saying though. Just dont let him get around others cause he will start acting the same way. I'm glad everything worked out for you though, we probably all know that stranded feeling and its no fun. I think the difference was that you called for assistance and typically the negative situations begin when the high and mighty LE are on there power trips lookiing to catch you breaking their laws.

I'm sure there are a few bad apples but I have never had a bad experience. Actually my 12 year old wants to be an agent

A few years ago I was checked by some LDWF agents while duck hunting,3 of them were in the boat. One guy asked to see our life vest and license while the other asked us to unload the weapons and hand our guns and ammo over to them. The younger guy asked to see our birds and asked if we had any lead shot on the boat while the agent we handed them over to look at every shell we had. We said no sir officer. The younger one got in our boat and continued to search asking again and adding you will be alot better off if you tell us the truth now. Officer we do not have any lead. He practically tore the boat apart looking and had everything scattered on the floor. He was really being a lil prick. I had everything I was reguired to have except my horn/whistle. Really started hounding me. When the other 2 agents finished checking the shells, plugs in gun, and license one looked at the younger guy and told him to stop writing clean up the mess he made and get back in then get back in the boat. One of the older wardens told me they been seeing empty lead shells floating in the ponds and were checking everyone. Then told me to have a nice day go get you a horn or whistle and sorry for the youger guy's inoppropriate behavior. Its in every job place, every department and everywhere you go. You shouldn't judge one persons demeanor toward a whole department. And hey just like you and I we all have a bad day sometimes. They aslo gave me tips on where they been seeing a lot of ducks to that hardly anyone was hunting back there. Salavor WMA. Good luck this year and safe hunting everyone.

Ive had some run ins with some really nice game wardens before who were very helpful and very respectful, and my hats off to them. I appreciate what they do

Ive also run into some really up tight wardens who wanted nothing more then to write tickets. Like someone said, Ive noticed they are a lot worse when in a group. One time a few years ago I had a young warden falsely identify a bird. I had my 2 pintail and 4 greys one of which was a hen. Once he jumped in the boat he said I had over my limit of Pintail and continued searching the boat hard! I told him no sir thats a Gadwall hen not a Pintail hen, he had an attitude to say the least. He then jumped in the boat for his ticket book and I saw one of the older wardens pull him to the side and Im guessing he told him it was a grey duck not a pintail. Instead of admitting to his mistake he then told me he was gonna let me go this time. The older warden apologized for holding me up and they were on their way. Thank God the young guy wasnt alone!

just like everything else they got the good and they got the bad!!! i think more bad than good!!you just happened to get one of the best!!! this guy deserves a raise or a promotion or both so he can teach the rest of them!!!

I too have had several occasions to experience the different attitudes from wildlife agents.

You cannot classify them all the same by any means. One agent, Todd, has been nothing but helpful, likeable, very knowledgeable, and does not possess the sour attitude some here have reported on.
However there are a few in the same area that are hellbent on you having to prove your innocence to them. As you know to some agents, we are always guilty until we can prove ourselves to be in compliance and innocent. It should not be that way. There are a few honest conservation minded people still out here…..

What we all have to remember is they might be having a bad day because the guys they checked before you were jerks. My experiences have mostly all been good. Every time these guys check a boat or a hunter in the woods they don't know what to expect. If they approach an outlaw there is no telling what can happen. We all have seen on the news where an agent has been killed and these cases usually are not solved. Most of the time they are alone. I have had times that they could have ticketed me for minor infractions but didn't. I treat them with the respect they deserve and they return the favor. They have even recommended areas to try if I wasn't catching.

Glad you had a positive experience and I'm sure many others have as well. Unfortunately we all know how it goes. Usually you only hear the negative and rarely the positive.

tigerdave - you are 150% right. LEO will meet attitude with attitude. If I pull someone over and am immediately met with the 'I pay your salary' attitude, you will get the same attitude back.

On the other hand, if I pull someone over and they are repsectful and don't act like I should be thanking them for letting me do my job, I will do what I have to do, no more no less, and send them on their way as quickly as possible.

For the people that automatically become defensive, that is a huge flashing neon sign that there might be something going on that shouldn't be.

JB- this is a lesson learned long ago. When I was young and dumb I was in a small town known for the speed traps. I was running 55 in a 35 daydreaming. Look up and a cop is coming the other direction. We are on a bridge so when I got off I pulled over. Took him about 5 min. to get to me. He walked up and said wow you pulled over! He said most keep going and he has to catch up with them. He asked if I knew why he had me and I said 'think it has something to do with me doing 55 in a 35' he started laughing. Looked at me and said because of your honesty and attitude, slow down and have a nice day. Since then when I'm checked or pulled over I remember that and have yet to get a ticket. (I kinda have a lead foot)

I'm guessing you are a cop so thank you for what you do. I make it a point to tell all of our public servents this. Police, fire or whoever for risking your lives to protect ours.

tiger - you are correct again and thank you for the appreciation.

No thanks necessary. I make it a point to have my son who's 5 do the same thing. What surprises me though is a lot of the responses are 'thanks for what' This tells me that very few people appreciate what y'all do. It's a shame!

Great comments here guys. Thanks for your input!

Im confused I thought we were talking about Law Enforcement.......So its our own fault for the agents negative attitude! JB, i hope you do not seriously believe that. Im sick of the harrassment from WF agents. Im not an outlaw, i buy all my licenses and always strive to obey the rules and regulations (which are very confusing and unclear at times) But when I get a uniform arrest ticket for trespassing on my own lease, which I now have to go to court for, they will be very hard pressed to get appreciation out of me. What I do possess is far more knowledge and education than most of them and I know my rights and refuse to let some arrogant cop infringe them. If he cant handle me standing up for my rights (Politely) then JB how is his negative attitude my fault?

I could really care less if the guy they checked before cussed his mother. That gives him absolutely no right to not treat me with the same respect i am showing him. What makes that officer better than any of the rest of us? We all have stress from life. Its no excuse to treat another human being with complete disrespect. We all have careers we choose to do and if the stress is causing an agents attitude to take a negative turn then maybe he should seek new employment. No excuse at all!

It was going good for a while. Please keep it civil.

keeping it civil is my point. Just seems from my experience most LE do not know the meaning of the word.

Lormanbogg- that's your opinion and I have mine. The difference between us and them is at our jobs we pretty much know we will return home to our families. If you ask someone a question at your work and they give you an attitude do you return the favor? We all need to stop viewing being checked as an inconvenience and understand they have a job to do. And yes sometimes you can run into one with an attitude. When this happens comply with what they ask and you will be on your way much sooner.

I'll give you an example. I was recently checked by the coast guard and they had another boat they checked at the same time. I gave them everything they asked for and was polite. The other guys had an attitude. I was underway in less then 5 minutes the other guys not so lucky. Attitude is everything.

lorman - In your case in MS, you are right. The agent was wrong. You are always bashing Officers and lumping them all together as bad apples. Every now and then, when someone says something good, you say it's a rarity. I never said you deserve attitude from an officer. What I was saying is that when I make first contact with a civilian and I get the attitude that you display on this site, I'm gonna take the same attitude with that civilian. I do not expect anyone to put up with unwarranted attitude from an officer just as I, or any other officer, will not put up with unwarranted attitude from a civilian.
I'm pretty sure I have never pulled you over so I have no clue how you react to being approached by any type of Officer. But, if you immediatley display the attitude that you display on this site, my flags would go up and I would meet aggression with aggression.
Let me put it this way. If you are in Home Depot and you have your items at the register trying to pay and the cashier, as soon as you walk up to her say's 'WHAT DO YOU WANT?' Are you going to be meek and timid or are you gonna give her the same attitude? That's the same with LEO's. If you walk in your house and tell your son 'Hello' and his response is 'WHAT DO YOU WANT? WHAT DID I DO?' are you going to apologize for bothering him or are you going to see why he is so defensive?
When I deal with someone, I treat them with the same respect and attitude I would want other officers to use when dealing with my wife, kids or other loved ones. When I deal with someone that immediately gets defensive, I HAVE to assume that there is something more going on than should be going on. I can't afford to NOT do that, my wife and kids expect me to come home at the end of my shift and I don't intend to let them down.

Not all game wardens are bad . At least that's what I keep telling my 14 year old son , who's been hunting and fishing with me since he could . I never go without him so he's been getting checked with me for at least 10 yrs and he knows how most have been towards us in the past 10 yrs .

This weekend we were eating supper in lettsworth
La. at a lil restaurant/gas station after hunting Saturday evening . A game warden came in and sat down near our table and was eating also . The man was very talkative and polite and so were we . When we left and got on the road my son says , ' hey dad , that must have been one of the nice game wardens you talk about' ...

That's coming from a 14 year old ! We've never broken a law , and we're always polite and respectful when checked . But he's seen different game wardens attitudes toward me and him and I guess now he thinks the bad out number the good , but at least now he knows there is one good one out there .

Maybe I am a little touchy on this subject because I am going through it right now. Maybe after I waste my day in court proving this jackleg wrong I will feel better about it. Everytime I go in the woods at my lease now I feel like Im doing something wrong when im not and at any second Im going to come face to face with a warden thats looking to harrass me. If their goal was to take the fun and enjoyment out of doing what i love to do, then they have succeeded. I sit in the stand and hear a vehicle coming down the gravel road and wonder if they saw my truck and want to hold me up and harass me some more. Just kinda at that point where it doesnt seem worth it. When I tell you that I was extremely polite when i was harassed, i mean exactly that. This was a over two hour ordeal and i bit my tounge the entire time. It was a sheriffs dept that stopped me with gun drawn for absolutely no reason other than for his own boredom i guess and after he had his fun and realized he didnt have a single reason to issue a ticket he made me sit and wait for well over an hour for game wardens to show up. So at that point I knew they didnt drive that far to not issue a citation and sure enough...trespassing and hunting from a public road on my own lease. (for those that dont know, I had a 22 mag pistol) so in reality both of those citations were unjust. Maybe Im just using posts like this to get under any LE's skin the way they do mine. I mean lets face it, if anyone speaks out against LE at the time of harassment then they are most likely to get tazed and thrown in jail. I agree not all are bad and JB you sound like one of the good ones but personally I am still waiting on my good encounter.

I have been checked many times by the Wildlife and fisheries agents and had one bad run in. I will admist that the cause was not my attitude but with people I was a associated with when we camped down at Pass A Loutre back in the early 1990s. My friends were wrong and looking back we were young and disrespectful.

I have never had an agent 'mistreat' me when I do exactly what JB says. You don't pose a threat, then they won't mistreat you. Law enforcement is the only line of work where the 'customers are usually wrong!!'. Now having said that, try looking at it from the agents perspective as trying to do their job. Almost everyone they encounter is armed.

I agree with JB on his LE perspective. And if you do encounter a 'bad' Agent, and feel as though you were 'wronged' then exercise your rights and take the case to court. As a lawyer once told a client, how much are you willing to spend on your pride?

$500 in fines plus trespassing on my record, I would say taking 2 sick days from work and going to court to straighten this out is about much more than pride but go on and assume what you will.

lorman - You should fight this in court. Right is right and wrong is wrong. I hope it turns out in your favor.

If I can give you some advice, I'd like to. Law Enforcement is trained to meet resistance with 1 level more resistance than is given. This can be from Passive all the way to Lethal Force. If the subject we deal with is Passive and Complaint, we will be the same. However, if the subject becomes Passive Resistant we will go one step above that and so on and so on. If you want to understand why, do a search for the video of South Carolina Trooper Coates. That is a dashcam video of a traffic stop in which the Trooper was shot and killed by the violator. It was all caught on video. From the Trooper being polite as if he were dealing with an 80 year old nun, to the point were the violator pulls a Derringer 22 out of his pocket and starts shooting. The Trooper hits the violator 3 times with a 357 Magnum and the violator isn't phased. After shooting him 3 times, the violator shoots the Trooper ONCE in the armpit. The bullet travels through the Trooper's lungs and into his heart. You can hear the Trooper screaming for help, then you hear him gurgling on his own blood, then he stops breathing.
I say this because the violator showed no signs of violence before he pulled a gun and murdered the Trooper. That situation is on the back of every LEO's mind (or it should be) whenever we deal with someone. Add in a Game Warden's job and 99.9% of the people they deal with being armed and that's why they go from good guy to suspect of everything at the drop of a hat.
I am in no way saying you should have been treated the way you were treated. Just trying to shed some light on why LEO's get amped real easily.

neighbors a cop, and i know a few. none are really 'bad'. Had a few game wardens stop me and check for EVERYTHING, and want me to pull out EVERY fish and measure them, but they were young. most old guys check for beer, license, and life jackets and are on their way. had one group of jacklegs run through our decoys, cut the string with their prop, say 'hey, decoys are floating away, may want to get longer string' and sped off. ran into plenty of young guys who cant even run a boat. my only complaint about cops are state troopers who hide out and wait. mostly from one cop who was waiting behind a street by the highway where the speed limit changed from 55 to 35 and a short distance later to 55 again. i wasnt familiar with the area and apologized, since i didnt see the sign. he said sorry isnt going to get you out of a ticket and wrote that up, then checked my windows. i had 40% tint on and it came up as like 33% or some weird number like that. told the cop they dont even make 33% tint and he said oh well you must have put 40 over your stock tint (which i had no idea trucks even came with stock tint) and wrote me up for that too. i never had a problem with local LEO though.

...Geronimo and Chief Hot Doc sez:

#1...invite to big backstrap din-din w/red wine and hot garlic bread.

#2...winning last hand of big Bouree potty is most important.

#3...let him snore till high noon...cheers

Admiral - Now you're learnin'!!!!!!

I have had meet and greets with LWF Agents go both ways. Typically, as soon as they see the blue lifetime license card they just tell you to have a nice day. But, there were other times that they were just determined to find a reason to write a ticket. A few years ago my boat was searched while it was tied up on the river and I was in the woods hunting. When I came out the agent had found a old buck shot shell that was so rusted it probably wouldn't have gone off if you tried. He wrote me a ticket for having it during archery season even though I didn't even have a gun to shoot it out of. Had to do 40 hours of community service at a animal shelter. Worked out OK though. I love dogs.

That rusty shell probably didnt even come out your boat. Not sure if that search was even legal without you being present. Sounds like you allowed that agent to walk on you by not standing up for your rights.

Buddy, a wildlife agent can search your boat with, or without your permission, anytime he or she wants if it is on WMA property. Same goes for everything you are carrying if your hunting on WMA property. Next time your fishing and your asked to open up the cooler, try telling the agent to go get a search warrant first. See how it works out for you. Agree or disagree with the laws all you want, but it was completely lawful for him to search my boat.

buddy, which part of what i said has anything to do with checking my cooler while im fishing? I completely understand he or she is within the law to search me or my belongings especially while in a WMA nor did i ever state that it wasn't within the law. I simply said I didnt know if them searching your unattended boat (without you present) and using what they may or may not have found in your boat against you constitutes as a legal search. Maybe you have found that in writing, but i didnt. But hey if you agree with the agent that you deserved the ticket then more power to ya.

Its the 4th amendment of our Constitution. Your response to the warden should have been asking him what his probable cause was to search your unattended boat. If he would have seen you fishing that constitutes checking your cooler for fish limits if he sees you hunting that constitutes him checking your gun or game limits, etc. But an unattended but!!! There is no probable cause for him to search your unattended boat unless someone had called and said they saw you engaging in illegal activity, or your boat fit the description of some other boat they were looking for but the records of that would have to be produced. We are all on your side and agree that was a BS ticket. Im just fed up with wardens believing they are God and our Bill of Rights do not apply to them.

there are good agents and in my 50 years of hunting i have met some. Those agents never get above agents. I have met some real butts and those agents have advanced. It is the way that agency is run. They get the young agents out to make a name for themself and praise them for being a butt and harassing prople. Don't think it is confined to just La. I hunt in alabama and Miss and it is the same. It is a shame that an agency that protects our wildlife creates such a bad image of themself.

I had to post because I have had the same experience. I have been harassed for 2 hours for having a rusted out spent 20 gauge dove load shell in the boat. I was 16 and the guy threatened to take my dads boat, our guns, my truck and everything else. We didn't even have a 20 gauge with us. I caught the warden going through my boat while it was anchored unattended in the pass. Same guy checked me in the blind a few years later and ran over several decoys before crashing into the blind and knocking over a buddy of mine. That guy got promoted. Meanwhile, just 2 years ago, 2 game wardens launched a boat and braved the calumet cut in a 15 mpg south wind to come and pull me out of the marsh just before dark after by anchor rope snapped and my boat floated away. They were the nicest guys. Seems like half of them can't properly identify a duck, drive a boat, or have a normal human interaction. The other half are sportsmen like us.