Originally Posted by
GW11
I hinted at this story in the CO's/Marlborough Forest thread but thought that I should start a new one here. Please realize that this is in no way to gain sympathy for what happened, because we did make mistakes, but more to educate my fellow hunters on the "you just never know" factor. I've heard it said many times on here before that a visit from a CO would be a welcome experience because if you have nothing to hide, it's no big deal. Well, it doesn't always go that way.
Others on here have tried to call me out for "painting CO's in a bad light", but that's not the case here either. My opinion of some CO's has most definitely been soured. As it's been pointed out here before, some people shouldn't wear a badge. I went to school with the hopes of becoming a CO and I'm now thankful that it didn't turn out that way. Some of my fellow students went on to work in the field and we're still good friends. I spend plenty of time with one in particular who has worked as a CO in Northern Ontario since we left college. So, although my opinion had been soured, I know that most of them are decent hard working folks like the rest of us.
This is going back quite a few years but I won't say exactly when. My family owned a large acreage (close to 800 acres) in Central Ontario at this time. It wasn't a great area for ducks, but we would usually get a couple on opening day. A friend and I started to bait this pond with corn in the pre-season and it increased our success rate a fair bit. We always stopped baiting two weeks before the season opener. A group of around 6 of us would usually go up to camp the night before the opener and kick off the waterfowl season there. We would maybe hunt that pond again once or twice throughout the rest of the year, but being a couple of hours away it was not overly practical. Eventually the pre-season baiting was split up between the 6 of us to save time.
After three or four seasons of this opening day tradition, I remember mentioning in a half-joke to the gang that we might have company one of these years because 6 of us do quite a bit of shooting. Someone is bound to take notice. It turns out someone did take notice and although I can't confirm it, I've always suspected either a jealous neighbour or anti in the area called the TIPS line. All speculation but I expect it was along the lines of "must be illegal activity going on because nobody shoots that much on the duck opener around here".
On this particular opening morning there were 8 of us. For one fellow it was his first hunt ever and it turned out to be his first and only, as he gave it up after this experience. We would wade out to the little island in the middle of the pond and set up in twos on the four sides of it. When we baited the pond in the weeks leading up to it, we would always throw the bait up around the shore of the island. Again, we always quit baiting two weeks before the opener. After a couple of hours we had shot around 15 ducks between the 8 of us. During a lull in the action my Dad remembered that he hadn't turned on the crock pot at the camp to heat up our stew for lunch so he waded out, jumped on the 4 wheeler and headed back over to the camp. When he came back to the island he looked like he'd had a shock so I asked him what happened. He said "there are 4 or 5 CO's in full camo over there in the bush watching us through binoculars right now". I seriously thought he was joking but he was adamant that he was not. They had jumped out of the bush and stopped him on the 4 wheeler when he was on his way over the the camp to make sure he wasn't leaving for good, because they "wanted to speak to all of us".
Obviously we weren't much into hunting any more and the CO's saw us all conversing so at that point they came out of the bush over on the shore where we would wade out from. There were 4 or them and a deputy or volunteer student or something. It turns out that 2 of them were from the WMU were hunting in and they recruited a few more from another area for "backup" that morning. They yelled over at us to unload our firearms and come out of the swamp with our guns over our heads. We did as told and when we got over there they immediately grabbed our guns separated all of us for questioning. They checked all of our guns (for plugs) and licences. I'm not exactly sure how the questioning went for everyone else but I remember mine quite well.
Keep in mind that the fellow questioning me was pretty decent and he was not the lead investigator on this "bust". "When last were you here to put bait in this pond" was the big question. I was pretty clear on the fact that it was over two weeks ago. The console of my truck even had the receipts from the feed store. He asked if I had been up to the pond in the previous two weeks at all and I had not. None of the group had been. He said that they had been in there a few days ago and there "was a substantial amount of bait still in the pond". I told him that I don't know how that was possible because the ducks would eat it clean in a few days from my experience in baiting it. He agreed to that but was adamant that "someone" had still been baiting this pond. I finally said that I really don't know what to say other than that although the pond was on our property, snowmobiles and 4 wheelers (illegally) used the bush road that went past it all of the time. I asked if this investigation was the result of a tip from a neighbour and he wouldn't say for sure. He said that it wasn't his case and the lead CO would have that information. I said that if it came from a tip, and you're adamant that there was still bait in this pond a few days ago, doesn't it stand to reason that the same guy who called you put the bait in the pond to get us in trouble? He just laughed and said "that's not gonna fly here". Well OK then. He did say that they had an entirely different idea in mind of what they were going to find when they came on the property. He expected to find us hunting over open bags of feed and a pile of beer cans laying around us, instead they found - as he put it - "a decent bunch of guys". I asked if he was charging us with something and he said quite bluntly "Oh he'll charge you with something, I'm just not sure of what yet".
The CO questioning my brother accused us of having unplugged shotguns in the group because "after 30 years on the job he knows an unplugged shotgun when he hears one". I guess it also gave him the ability to distinguish between shotguns from 300 yards away when 8 guys are shooting (note the sarcasm). My brother asked him how many unplugged shotguns he found when he looked. The CO wouldn't answer that. He also accused us of not retrieving a duck that we had shot out on the pond when in fact it had been my brother trying a shot at a stump with his buddy's new shotgun. Nothing came of that though. We had retrieved everything we shot that morning.
After about 1.5 hours of questioning the lead CO had apparently had enough of not hearing what he wanted to an put on a pair of waders. He went out the the island, looked around for a bit, then waded out to about chest height. We couldn't really figure out what he was up to until he came back the the shore. He stretched out his hand and in it was three rotten and black old kernels of corn that had been too deep for the ducks to reach. The CO had been out there churning up the mud until they came up. He said, " Well, it appears there is still bait in this pond."
All 8 of us were charged with hunting within 400 metres of where bait was deposited and the fine was in the neighbourhood of $400 each after the "victim's surcharge". They decided to "allow us to keep our guns" and assured us that it was "just a fine", not a criminal offence. My guess is that this lead CO couldn't go back empty handed after the man hours he had put into this operation.
Our mistake, as I had discussed with my questioning CO, was that we didn't make a return trip up to ensure the pond had been free of bait for at least 7 days. I admitted freely that I hadn't, because it was usually gone 3 or 4 days after depositing it. I didn't think that a four-hour round trip was necessary to determine that but now I suppose that it could have saved us a lot of hassle by checking. The other mistake was letting some of the bait get out too deep, where the ducks couldn't reach it but the CO could. I don't know if I really believe their claims of "substantial amount of bait still in the pond" when they had checked previously. There were always quite a few eyes on the property and it isn't easy to get in there. Somebody likely would have noticed the activity if they had really gone in to check.
All 8 of us went to the JP to see what we could do. The JP started off by saying he wasn't speaking to all 8 of us so send one in to tell the story. I got elected for that one. At first he said that there was nothing he could do about any of this unless it was a financial concern for those involved. I said absolutely it's a financial concern for some in the group, 400 bucks is a lot of money. He then settled down and listened to the story. Finally, upon hearing the CO's name he looked at me and said that I wouldn't believe the number of people that come through his door with this CO's name on the ticket. Even more unbelievable are the things they get charged for. He then asked if $80 each sounded fair. It sounded good to me. He then went on to say that we should be taking it to court because he wanted to see this CO put on the spot for this type of charge. I said that in the end we were guilty of having bait still present in the pond and the 8 of us were from different cities. The logistics of a court date weren't worth it. To clear it up immediately for $80 would be a lot easier than everyone having to come back another day for court. He said that the CO would have to go out of his way to get to court too, and maybe he'd think twice about this stuff if people held him to it more often. I guess we should have, but we paid the fine and got it over with then and there.
After that morning, a couple of group members gave up waterfowling altogether and that new hunter never hunted again. Like I said, we made mistakes, we plead guilty, but we were treated like a gang of criminals for the most part. My questioner was the best of the bunch. My brother, my Dad and my friends were questioned by the other guys and they made non-stop accusations before admitting that they didn't exactly find what they wanted to. The lead CO never really let on that they had misjudged the situation. My suspicion is partly that we were thrown under the bus by the neighbours and partly that the CO's expected another family member in particular to be with us. Much of the questioning was about his whereabouts. This family member was not a duck hunter though. I won't say much about him either but he'd had his trouble with the law before and I don't hunt with him anymore.
I've been wanting to tell that one for a while now. Glad you all could hear it. Take from it what you want, but I learned a couple of huge lessons that day. The first being you never know what type of CO you will run into. The second is you just never know when you're being watched so treat every moment like you are.
