While game wardens spend a bunch of time doing thankless work, every now and then they also have some interesting experiences that result in entertaining stories. Texas Parks and Wildlife publishes a few of the more noteworthy events from game warden notes each month, and I’ve summarized a couple humorous happenings from the notes released in the February 2019 edition below.

As you’ll see in a minute, both cases involve men that essentially broadcast their activities for the world to see, which I’m sure really made the job easier for the game wardens that got to deal with them.

Busted On Social Media

Hunters and anglers are constantly searching for their own secret “honey hole” with plenty of fish/game and minimal competition from other sportsmen. This often involves travelling to a difficult to find or access location. For instance, a man in Bexar County apparently found a great fishing spot on Calaveras Lake.

However, as it turns out that involved trespassing on San Antonio Power Plant property and fishing in a prohibited area. Game wardens received a tip about his adventures and it didn’t take long for them to discover that he’d been sharing his exploits on social media. Further investigation revealed the man was a convicted felon on probation.

So, game wardens informed his probation officer and the judge presiding over the man’s scheduled court hearing of his recent illegal fishing activities. I’ll bet he probably wishes he hadn’t gone fishing where he wasn’t supposed to.

Not Best In Show

In another case, a game warden checking out the famous Muy Grande Deer Contest down in South Texas noticed something unusual in one of the categories. One lucky hunter had entered two massive bucks that both scored over 200” on the Boone & Crockett scale. The gigantic bucks ended up winning first and second place, respectively, in the Macho Grande Division of the contest.

However, while the hunter had a resident fishing license, the game warden couldn’t find any record of the man possessing a valid hunting license. As it turns out, the hunter had entered his hunting license number from the previous year in the harvest log of the ranch where he shot the bucks. Game wardens seized the bucks in question from the taxidermist and cited the man for hunting without a license.

It’s unclear exactly what the circumstances were of this particular man’s hunt. However, it seems like he was hunting with permission on the ranch where he took those bucks and, aside from not having a license, was hunting in an otherwise lawful manner. If that’s the case and he paid to hunt at the ranch in question, that was probably an extremely expensive hunt that got even pricier due to the penalties resulting from not purchasing a $25 hunting license.