Running into fishing enforcement on my first day flyfishing...

I once got checked on the south fork WallaWalla, on the trail outside of Harris Park. We had ridden our mountain bikes up the trail and would pull off to fish occasionally. A couple guys on motorcycles came by and started chatting us up, then found out they were OSP and they checked our licenses. Very nice guys, but then, they were up in the wilds riding dirt bikes on a holiday weekend instead of patrolling the highways, so who wouldn't be in a great mood?
 
I also didn't fish as a kid. I began fishing after I joined the USAF because almost everyone else did.

And wow, maybe I don't fish the popular places, next to a road, or something?

Only once in 52 years of fishing have I even come close to encountering a WDFW LEO for a license or gear check. IIRC it was 1 or 2 weekends after Discover Pass enforcement started. Mrs Brian & I were on our way back to the west side from Eburg after volunteering at the Federation of Fly Fishers (now Fly Fishers International) Fair.

We had stopped to have lunch at Bullfrog and I was testing out some NOS ultralight Red Ball coated waders I'd gotten in a silent auction bid for $15 to use when backpacking with a float tube for fit and leaks. (BTW, works great with outer neoprene socks and lightweight booties). Mrs Brian was relaxing in the truck and I was tossing a fly in the river only 120 feet away. A WDFW LEO pulled in, got out, walked up to my truck, saw the DP hang tag, got back in his truck and left. Guess he figured if I had the DP you get when purchasing a license, I likely had one, and because I was fly fishing I was likely using barbless hooks.
 
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Sounds like a good first experience. I had one the other day, my second of the year, that I think didn’t go so well for the officer…because I’m an idiot.

Here’s how it went:

Scene: 5 am, hours before dawn, MA 9 beach:

Stranger: Mornin’, you fishing?

Me: Ha, yeah. Not catching, though.

Stranger: What are you trying to catch?

Me, wanting to fish and not talk with a stranger who is in my back cast, but deflecting with humor:

“At this point, anything. Minke whale, seagull, coconut…“

Stranger: Coconut?

Me: “Oh, sure. Folks spot them from time to time around here. There’s this one guy who…”

Stranger: What about salmon?

Me: “Yeah, lots of folks spot them too.”

[It was at this time that it dawned on me that that was a lot of questions for a stranger to be asking. Also, at 5 am, there aren’t usually any strangers at this beach, let alone female strangers.]

Me, really looking at the person for the first time, seeing the uniform: “Oh, you’re fish and wildlife?”

Officer: Yeahp. What’re you doing out here so early? Do you have your license on you?

Me, reaching down into my pants inside my waders: “Well, here comes the hard part.”

Officer: Sir?

Me: “Hold on, It’s hard.”
*grunting as my hand snakes between body and wading belt to get to my wallet in my front pants pocket*

Officer: Sir?!

Me: “Huh? Oh. ooh! No, sorry. It’s just tight in my pants because I’ve got my water…wader! pants on over my school pants. Wader pants! Waders! I wear my waders in water so I guess they are water pants. My water wader pants keep me dry so I can go to school later.”

Officer: You go to a school?!

Me: “Yeah, I’ve been at [redacted] high school for years. We’re starting to talk about graduation already, can you believe it? I’m excited! I might get to go to the ceremony this year…”

Officer: Would you sign your license please?

From there the interaction was pretty much over, thank goodness.
 
Can’t remember any in Washington. Never been approached in Oregon but have had to stop at what I would call check points at trail or road exits.
The officer asks you a few simple questions such as ….
You fishing today?
You have your license? (Never had to show it tho)
Fly or conventional?
Catch any ? What you catch? How many? Keep any?

Thanks . Have a good day
 
I've only had my license checked twice, both times on the Deschutes in the fall. I bet they were looking for salmon poachers.

I've never been checked west of the cascades. I've run into OSP a couple of times and chat them up, but they probably figured I ain't catching' shit when they see the spey rod, so no point in checking for a license.
 
I got a ticket for hunting without a license when I was 17 from a USFWS agent. I was walking back after hours in the dark the agent was waiting to check hunters when they came in from the field. It was an honest mistake. I had left my license/duck stamp in the pickup. I went
to court and explained my mistake to the judge and held up my license/duck stamp. The judge showed mercy and dismissed my case after admonishing me to carry my license.

That was 43 years ago and I've only been checked two or three times since, both hunting and fishing combined. I've been checked about the same number of times for boating safety gear by USCG.
 
No doubt we've all been unaware of being glassed by enforcement folk many times. US F&WL officers do so on the National Wildlife Refuges a lot....those areas have (thankfully) a pretty high officer density.

A few years back I was fishing a small lake from my kayak early season. Had the entire lake to myself as well as the little parking lot.

I started seeing an occasional movement in the brushy woods above the lake but thought nothing of it.

Eventually paddled back to the launch, and a WDFG officer popped out of the bushes and asked to see my license and catch (nothing because all I do is C&R). Then he asked if that was my truck in the lot and if it had a pass. Of course it was my truck and all he needed to do was look at the pass hanging on the mirror. There are no cabins on the lake and I have no idea he thought I could have gotten there with a kayak a different way...but there's never a reason to get lippy with any LEO, so I left that alone.

Young fella...very coldly professional and equipped like a SWAT officer, loaded with spare magazines, lots of velcro, and armored up.

Maybe they'd been having poaching issues at that lake...which is sometimes heavily stocked.
 
WDFW used to patrol one beach I fished quite often. Two officers would show up. One would start checking anglers on one end of the beach while the other would start at the other end and they’d work towards each other. If they discovered a violation, they’d take the person’s ID or license and tell them to come up to the parking lot.
A guy fishing next to me got busted for fishing a buzz bomb with barbed treble hooks. The guy seemed in no rush to go to the parking lot and since he was going to get a citation, he must have figured the hell with it and just kept fishing. He was there quite a while and they finally came back down and wrote him up on the beach. It would have been very entertaining to see how things played out had he caught and retained a fish using illegal gear.
SF
 
Been checked fishing 5 times in over 50 years of fishing WA waters. My family was about as non-outdoorsy as they could possibly be. So I don't know how I got the itch but decided that hunting and fishing and hiking and camping was gonna' be my lifestyle. I had wanted to fish from an early age but had no means to do so. Then we moved to a rural property with a creek running through a corner of it. At age 12 I bought a fiberglass fishing pole for $3 and with the help of a neighbor assembled enough gear to go fishing. I didn't know there existed such a thing as fishing regulations or licenses. I just went fishing whenever and wherever I could. I must have fished without a license for a year or two before I learned that I needed a fishing license at age 14 or 15. I may have bought a fishing license when I got my driver's license at 16. When I bought my first fishing license is when I saw my first regulation pamphlet, so I learned for the first time that opening day was later in April than I previously thought.
 
krusty said:
No doubt we've all been unaware of being glassed by enforcement folk many times. US F&WL officers do so on the National Wildlife Refuges a lot....those areas have (thankfully) a pretty high officer density.
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Yeah, that's what a LEO Captain and a Karelian Bear Dog handler Sgt he brought along for color commentary told our fishing club in 2024 when I mentioned my lack of LEO encounters. And the Rugged Justice TV series always had an observation and enforcement from concealment segment. Still I typically fish during the week at places with only one access, have the water to myself all day, and an officer isn't going to come out of concealment to check for a licence and barbs if they are there??? After the concealment answer I asked the Sgt, who was going to retire soon to relate some of his bear experiences. THAT was entertaining!
 
Forgot to mention the time we were fishing a general season/reg lake from a friend's scanoe. There were lots of folk fishing on the lake.
A WF&F officer pulled up in his boat and asked to see our licenses...then he wrote a warning citation to my friend because he wasn't wearing his inflatable PFD and only had it on the boat.

I think he visited every boat on that lake, intercepting several that were heading back to the launch ramp in a hurry. Pleasant officer and was no doubt enjoying a very productive day of hunting....
 
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Lake flyer said:
My wife and I got checked in MT and the officer couldn't have been nicer. In conversation he told us of a few other small streams to check out because we were new to the area.
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I got checked about once a year in Vermont. Always pleasant, sometimes some great intel on other spots. I haven't seen a game warden in WA since moving here in 2019.
 
I was a poacher once, but not on purpose. It was years before fly fishing. I picked up the paper and noticed that opening day was this coming Saturday. Oh boy I'm going fishing and I know exactly where I wanted to go. A small lake on the Wa. side of the Columbia. When I got there fish were rising all over and I was especially happy cuz I was the only one there. (should have been an omen) As I was landing the last fish to fill my limit I notice a woman had parked her car and was walking behind mine with notebook and pen. She got in her car and left before I could ask what's up. I looked around and on one side of the lake was a post with what looked might be a sign but it was sideways to where I was. I walked around and sure enough there was a sign. It said the lake opened a week from the day I was there. Oh Oh. She had obviously written down my license number. I was in trouble. There was a bridge not far from there so I crossed over to the Oregon side and came home on I 84. Got home and grabbed the paper. It was opening day! In Oregon, but not in Wa. till the following weekend. For a long time I wondered if there would be knock on the door but whew, that never happened. Trout for dinner was good. Made sure to cook it all. A couple times since I've arrived at a place to fish and saw no one else there and pulled out my regs book before getting out of the rig.
 
Been checked twice in WA. Once because I was fishing off the road he was driving down, and the 2nd time because we were camped next to a deer camp. I thought about making an issue of the fact that I wasn't in fact fishing, but I let it go. At least he was checking, which I consider a rarity in WA. My neighbor was a bio for the WDFW, and he made the comment about the outgoing (retiring) regional enforcement office, "He's a windshield warden." Considering that I've only been checked when I'm essentially standing next to my vehicle...yeah, that seems about right.
 
I was fishing from shore with a friend on the big lake in Montana. Saw the game warden glassing us from 1/2 mile off.
Told my buddy heads up, we have incoming. Warden made his way over, first thing he commented, " never seen anybody fly fishing here, watcha fishing for?"
😁...I liked hearing that.
 
A friend hasn't had a license since the 90's, c/r all over the state and fishes all year, and he has yet to see a warden in the field. He fishes moving water, doesn't fish near the car and uses his own shuttle. It's gonna take an adventure seeking warden to put eyes on this guy, so I think he has another 30 yrs of warden free fishing in his system.
 
Peyton00 said:
A friend hasn't had a license since the 90's, c/r all over the state and fishes all year, and he has yet to see a warden in the field. He fishes moving water, doesn't fish near the car and uses his own shuttle. It's gonna take an adventure seeking warden to put eyes on this guy, so I think he has another 30 yrs of warden free fishing in his system.
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Not something to aspire to.
 
I had some interesting interactions with CA Fish and Game over the years. One day I took my girlfriend to a small creek in the back country near Otay Lake. No fishing gear, no firearms, just a nice romantic place for a picnic. We started kissing, no clothes were removed, I heard some rustling from the bushes. I, of course, investigated and sure enough...A CA F&G officer was perving on us. It was quite an awkward, unpleasant experience for all three of us.
 
Another time I was "rock climbing" a well-known area for rock climbing. Walking back to my a car, a uniformed F&G officer stopped me on the trail. No fishing gear, no firearms, wearing climbing shoes with a chalk bag. He proceeded to search my fanny pack...that irked me. I have had several interactions with WA fish and wildlife and they seem to be top notch professionals.
 
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