With just a few days until the resident 2012 pheasant season opened here in North Dakota my neighbor Roger and I took a ride to scout some spots to the east a few miles. With the amount of acreage in corn this year I wanted to check on the harvest progress before deciding where I would hunt opening day with the Setters.
I had started the morning coming out to the Jeep to find the dome light had been left on over night running down the battery. This happens because the dogs bump the switch on the over head console. I suspect Beau as the perpetrator due to his height. We had been in the field the previous day with a lot of in and out of the Jeep so no surprise as this happens more than once throughout the season. So after jump starting the Jeep I wanted to let it run and charge up a bit. A good reason to ask my neighbor Roger if he wanted to go for a ride. Having been the former county agent Roger knows his way around and I enjoy his anecdotes of experiences he's had hunting throughout the years.
We were cruising along a secondary road noting the cover available within the harvested corn that being brushy areas along sloughs, fence rows and rock piles. We came over a small rise and noticed 2 hunters walking the road edge with two labs. I stopped not wanting to interfere as I thought they must be grouse hunting. Roger said "Go ahead lets say hello". So we pulled up ahead and I said to Roger " I think the guy on the right has a rooster in his hand!" Roger thought they were probably duck hunting as we pulled along side. Sure enough they come up to the windows and the guy's holding a rooster. I said " Hey guys how's it going? They said they'd been duck hunting as evidenced by the black camo on their faces. I commented on the rooster and they said yeah that's the second one we got. I looked at Roger and smiled saying "Well guys the season doesn't open till Saturday!" They acted surprised of course saying thanks for telling us. We said we did not plan on reporting them but suggested they make tracks to which they replied " We're going to get the hell out of here!" I reminded them to not waste the bird as we drove on.
I don't know many people that have never made a mistake in the field conscious or otherwise in my life time. Whether or not these guys were telling the truth was their business and only they own the responsibility with ignorance being no excuse. I didn't want to clutter my day over their obvious blunder putting themselves in jeopardy with a potential sizable fine and loss of hunting privileges It's my hope that the way we handled the encounter was enough cause for reflection on their part to make sure it doesn't happen again. After all it's the best outcome I would hope for if I ever found myself in such a predicament which would be highly unlikely. However for example I hunt upland birds in waterfowl production areas quite frequently and have game bags set up with either steel or lead shot. Sometimes I grab the wrong bag and forget or other times realize I've got some lead shells in a pocket. A violation and a mistake unintentional but a mistake. I realize this most of the time before I'm into the hunt to far but it happens and I go back to the Jeep and switch out my bag. No fine and no warden necessary.
I forgot to ask if these guys were from the U.P of Michigan or the State of Michigan. They weren't missing any front teeth or have an accent "ehh" so probably were not "Yoopers den". That would have made it easier to understand them not knowing if the season was open or not. So Roger and I of course weren't fooled by the "Really we didn't know" but instead believe getting caught by fellow sportsman if they were indeed from the State of Michigan should serve as a sufficient deterrent. When I run into Michigan hunters in the future I'll be sure to share the story to make sure they don't make the same mistake!
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