We turned the truck around and back up the mountain we went. I called the Warden and left him a message explaining to him that we got permission and we were heading in to retrieve the bulls. It was 11 or so hours since we killed the bulls by the time we got back to them so spoilage was a real concern. The high that day was maybe 40 degrees or so but sunny. The bulls were bloated. We began to work fast starting with getting the hide off the one side on each bull as quick as possible and getting that first rear leg lifted up.
Almost exactly 12 hours later, and 6 packouts from my wife and 5 from me, both bulls were out to the road and in the back of our sxs. The wasted meat was only the tenderloins and about 5 pounds from one rear downward ham around the ball joint and around 10 pounds in the other bull, same deal with the ham. Thankfully it was only about a 1/2 mile pack out.
Before I can finish my story, I need to give a little bit of Wisconsin CWD background.
Wisconsin is the poster child of what exactly to not do when it comes to CWD. They didn't handle the situation very good at the start and now it has a huge impact on our deer herd in a certain area of the state. In order to lock this down and try to prevent hunters from being the ones that spread it, they now have strict rules on what parts of big game can be moved around from county to county in our state. Organs are not one of the items listed that can be legally transported. Seems silly but I know someone who got a violation for possessing a deer heart and liver.
So legally, in CO, we need to remove the testies naturally attached to a hind and then somewhere between the CO state line and the Wisconsin line, we need to ditch them. I actually don't know the rules in Nebraska and Iowa so maybe we are illegal traveling with them there, I actually don't know.
What we did was remove the testies and just brought them home, taking the chance in Wisconsin and either not getting caught or hoping we can win that argument with a Wisconsin game warden because its honestly a ridiculous situation.
Quick side note: I later found out that Arizona is also super strict in transport laws to prevent CWD from showing up in their state and their law does specifically state you can possess proof of sex, if required by the state you are coming from. Thanks for clearing that up AZ and hopefully Wisconsin follows suit.
We make it home late on Thursday and I receive a call from the Warden we talked to the day before. He asks me all kinds of questions and it soon becomes clear that I'm being interrogated. I honestly think he thought I lied in that voicemail about getting permission. The harassment of questions did not stop. I'm convinced that for some reason he was trying to find something I did wrong because I have talked with dozens of game wardens before and this conversation was completely different.
He however did have one question that I didn't know how to answer or what to do.
"Did you remove evidence of sex from both bulls?"
I answered honestly with a yes.
"Can you take a picture of them for me?"
"Ummm sure."
Afterwards, I was able to send him a screenshot of the text I received with permission so at least that was settled. I however had no intentions of sending him a picture of evidence of sex. Part of it was stubbornness, part of it was the fact that I didn't want to provide proof and then have him send it to a Wisconsin game warden resulting in a violation in my own state.
I did talk with someone that I trust about legal issues and he told me that I have no legal obligation to cooperate at this point and honestly, this warden has no legal right to charge me with anything at all unless he either caught me in the act or had hard physical proof since I was out of his state already.
Late the next week he calls me and said that if I can't send him a photo of evidence of sex, he has no choice but to write us a ticket. We choose to ignore his threat.
Fast forward to the early part of December and my wife and I both received a certified letter from CO P&W with a citation containing a fine of $140 each for failure to provide proper evidence of sex on an elk.
We had to pay the citation by early January or show up in person, in court to dispute the claim. For the $140 amount on the citation, the warden ended up getting what he wanted because there is no way I would travel back there to dispute $140.
This left me feeling extremely sour about the whole experience. I personally felt and still do that we didn't do anything wrong. Ethically, should we have passed on those bulls? Yes, I do believe we should have especially knowing that they very well could have laid there to waste as they almost did. Technically, we did do something illegal and should have received the citation in Wisconsin for illegally transporting big game parts. It's for this reason that I'm ok with and can move past the $280 bucks extra this hunt costed us. What's sour in me however is how I was treated by this game warden. We did everything correct and by the book. We knocked on over 20 doors, self reported that we filled our tags but have unrecoverable meat and horns left on private and I cooperated fully with the game warden during the whole process while we were there, way more than what was likely required of me (I didn't owe him coordinates, I didn't owe him my truck make and color, I didn't owe him my camp location, I didn't owe him the make and caliber of my gun, etc.). I stopped cooperating when I got home and his call started to make me feel like I was a criminal.
Thankfully, my experiences in the past with game wardens have been extremely positive and they have always been super helpful to me including telling me where I should check out to find x. Without those positive interactions, I would probably be viewing this experience in a whole different light and likely reluctant to ever self report anything again.
