Transporting Waterfowl, "legally".

[jdmidwest]

As a couple of friends found out yesterday in a MDC checkpoint, a hotel does not classify as a home.

According to what I received from an agent today.

From the field to your home, waterfowl needs either 1 wing attached or a head, your Name, Address, Date of Kill, and Species. Your home may be where you live or another property you own like a hunting cabin. A rented hotel does not count, which I thought it did, I had always processed my birds on a trip and froze them if possible, labeling them accordingly.

From your house to wherever, camp, friends house, smokehouse, etc, it does not need the wing or head, but the Name, Address, Date of Kill, and Species. If you give it to someone, after it has been to your house, same info is needed, no head or wing.

Kind of confusing. Transporting a frozen duck breast without a wing and head attatched from your motel is a violation. Transporting a frozen duck breast after it has been at a property you own without a head or wing attached is legal, providing it is labeled properly.

[Daryk Campbell Sr]

Interesting. Now out of genuine curiousity, ( not a sarcastic question ) where was the checkpoint, and how would they know you did not process legally? Just seems like it would be alot of detective work to get someone after the game was processed.

I clarified the question because sometimes when things are in text form, there is no emotion that can be processed from the question/statement.

[jdmidwest]

They were stopped at an MDC deer checkpoint at the Cuba exit in Cuba, MO Sunday on the way back from Schell Osage hunting trip. They had spent 2 nites in a motel and had frozen breasted birds in the cooler and fully feathered birds from the Sunday hunt. The breasted birds were just breasts in a ziplock bag, frozen, with name address date and species. But since there was no wing or head and they had not been "home" from the hunt, persay, they were ticketed.

They also had the remains of a cooked bird in one of the smaller coolers that they were snacking on. All in all, they were below the posession limit for a 2 day hunt, so they did not get a ticket for that. Just a failure to identify and label properly for transport.

Technically, all wild game, birds, squirrels, rabbits, deer, and probably fish need your name, address, date of kill, and species on the bag when stored in the freezer of your home or cooler when you possess them until they are cooked. One thing I had never really done was to put my name and address on my personal packaging in my freezer, I do put a date and species. I had always added it to any that I give away along with my conservation ID number. When transporting wild game and fish from the camp, I usually toss a business card in the bag for personal ID to separate mine from others. But if someone wanted to be a stickler to the law, that would not really be sufficient.

Leaving a head or wing attached to a cleaned bird contaminates the meat after cleaning in my opinion, but I will start doing it to make the things legal.

[fishinwrench]

Malarkey! Game dropped off at processing outfits don't always have all that info attached to them when left there for processing, nor when the finished product is picked up. And a commercial meat locker would not be considered "home" either.

Sounds like your pal had a run-in with a genuine nit picking jackass that knows the fine is less than what a lawyer would charge to eliminate it.

I can't stand a badge packer that screws with people even though it's obvious that they are doing nothing questionable.

Just had to find someone to spill his pen on, didn't he?

[Outside Bend]

The ducks could be all hens, they could be all pintails or canvasbacks, etc- it's hard to tell when they're all just hunks of meat. That's why the law requires a wing or head be attached- so they can tell the species and sex of the hunter's take. I'd agree it's not one of the most well-known rules even a little ambiguous- but I can see why agents would need that information to determine whether a hunter was complying with game laws. And it's in the same regulations book as all the other waterfowl rules- to me it's no more "nit picky" than fining a guy for whacking ducks before shooting hours, using an unplugged gun, or lead shot on public lands.

It's a bummer the guy got a ticket, but it was because the hunter didn't know the rules- not because the LE was being a big meanie. And as much as folks on here clamor for more enforcement, I'm glad to see MDC doing these sorts of checks.

[Chief Grey Bear]

Great response OB. One would have thought though, for as many years as JD has claimed to an avid outdoorsman and hunter, he would have easially know the rule and the intent of the rule.

Sounds like a great, innocent story. But two things we don't know and never will know is what was the intent and attitudes of those ticketed? Was there a reason they were transporting them the way they were?

[Feathers and Fins]

Great post OB, Agreed it seems from JD that the warden was looking to spill ink I have seen warnings written for that but never citations unless the offenders had a bad attitude or previous violations.

If you read over the Federal laws there is many laws that at were one time needed but now are out of date. I agree that until the birds are home the wing should be attached as there are still species in trouble after they are home the labeling is rather silly as there is no possible way short of DNA testing to confirm the species of breast if the person mis-marks it. Possession limits are a pet peave of mine in a big way, If i shoot 2 days limits of Honkers in the AR Resident hunt then by LAW im in violation of possession limit the day the Special Northwest Zone or Regular season opens if I still have birds from the Resident season.

The entire waterfowl regs need to be revisited and adjusted with clarity so a 3rd grader could understand them.

[jdmidwest]

It was a long weekend for both parties involved. The agents were in the second weekend of firearms deerseason working both sides an exit off of the interstate on a Sunday afternoon and had been putting in many hours. The hunters were coming back after a long weekend of duck season on the other side of the state. They were pulling over deer hunters specifically, but the saw the duck boats and decided to pull them over too. The agents on that side had to call in the waterfowl expert on the other side to do the waterfowl check. Both parties were low on tolerance. The hunters were in the wrong, so the ticket book came out. The frozen duck breasts were taken to a local food bank. They were not labeled and just separate in 2 ziplock bags in a cooler, which they normally don't do.

I fully understand the meaning of the law of transport. But I thought transport ends at the motel when you process it for storage and freeze it. I thought the transport part of the process was to prevent you from carrying around more than one daily limit or taking more than a limit in one day.

The confusing part is, according to what the agent explained to me, the wing or head has to be attached from the field to the motel, motel to home, field to hunting cabin. After that, just proper labeling from home to friend, family, smokehouse is all that is needed. I had always cleaned birds fully on multi day excursions at the motel or a friends house, labeled them, then transported them back.. According to the agent, I may have been breaking the law. Daily birds always ride back fully feathered on my bird carrier that is labeled with my cons. id.

[Feathers and Fins]

Tagging. You cannot put or leave waterfowl at any place or in the custody of another person unless you tag the birds with your signature, address, number of birds identified by species, and the date you killed them.

Dressing. You cannot completely field-dress waterfowl before taking them from the field. The head or one fully feathered wing must remain attached to the birds while you transport them to your home or to a facility that processes waterfowl.

http://www.fws.gov/le/waterfowl-hunting-and-baiting.html

Jd three things I do to maintain legality on multy day trips and the first one applies to single day trips with more than two hunters.

1. Use multi-color zip ties to identify whos bird is whos and keep the seperated on individual lanyards.

2. Use a label maker and put on it all the legally required info wrap it around the wing of the bird after cleaning

3. Place all birds after cleaning in in individual 1 gallon ziplock backs marked on the bag with the legal info and palce each bag in a a vacum sealable Jacket bag with the persons name who shot the birds inside it.

I have cleaned and ate birds in many motels and technically that could be illegal if you have a nit-picking warden. Like I said the laws need to be re-written to avoid these issues.

[jdmidwest]

Tagging.

I have cleaned and ate birds in many motels and technically that could be illegal if you have a nit-picking warden. Like I said the laws need to be re-written to avoid these issues.

How could that be construed as illegal? For that matter you could eat them that night in a campground too. You could cook them in the duck blind for lunch, as long as you did not exceed a daily bag limit of birds, just keep remains of the carcass, ie wings, head, remains of feathers as proof. Going on what I was told, once cooked they did not count as possession.

And the link is the Federal Law, which may be different from the Missouri Code. Normally, a waterfowl violation draws both state and federal charges. But they only received a state ticket from MDC.

Daily bag limit. You can take only one daily bag limit in any one day. This limit determines the number of waterfowl you may legally have in your possession while in the field or while in route back to your car, hunting camp, home, or other destination. MOTEL?

Tagging. You cannot put or leave waterfowl at any place or in the custody of another person unless you tag the birds with your signature, address, number of birds identified by species, and the date you killed them. He could have labeled the birds and gave them to his son and vice versa, then they would have been legal according to the letter of this law while in transit from motel to home.

Dressing. You cannot completely field-dress waterfowl before taking them from the field. The head or one fully feathered wing must remain attached to the birds while you transport them to your home or to a facility that processes waterfowl. But they only have to be "tagged" after that with the above tagging information. Technically they took them to their home for the night, and processed them. People rent homes too, just like you rent motels. And once home, you can transport them without a wing or a head as long as they are properly labeled.

I am not trying to defend them or say the MDC was out of line. They were wrong and did not tag the birds with the proper label info like they normally do and they are not fighting the ticket. I always use the tags provided at the hunting areas when possible for waterfowl that you simply fill in the blanks for transporting processed birds. I have used a business card with my cons. id, date, and species written on the back. In the blind they are on my lanyard with my MDC id no.