Warden Wire: 'Nothing says love like safety equipment'
November 26, 2012
By: Joanne M. Haas/Bureau of Law Enforcement
Warden entertains & educates through final gun-deer day
Warden Wire concluded five days of its tweet-along by riding with Warden Mike Young of Outagamie County on the final day of the 2012 Gun-Deer Hunt, marking it with many stops dedicated to educating hunters about blaze orange, gun safety and regulations.
Mike Young has been the warden in Outagamie County for 18 years. In addition to at least 10,000 acres accessible to the public, his territory also includes the cities of Appleton, Grand Chute and growing Seymour. On Sunday morning, Young was expecting more hunters to join the last day to take advantage of the one inch of snow that fell overnight.
“There’s enough snow to track, and the white background makes it easier to spot deer,” Young said. Plus the sub-freezing temperatures might encourage the deer to move more than during the first part of the season.
One of the first deer drives Young spotted Sunday compelled him to pull over and talk with the group of five about the safety concerns of deer drives done in a cornfield -- and done so close to the road. After about a 10-minute talk standing at the edge of the corn rows, the group agreed to change a few things and headed off in a much safer direction.
Young visited with his share of family members enjoying the hunt – including one father-son team that made for a good enforcement education episode about blaze orange.
Young spotted the pair leaving the woods and noticed the blaze orange cap of one was significantly faded. Time to get out his small card that shows the legal brightness of the blaze orange color. He uses this small card to make sure the blaze orange has not faded into being illegal. But the cap of one hunter was beyond its legal days. He used the card to show the hunter it was time to get a new cap.
“I guess it’s seen its day,” the hunter said to Warden Mike, who then turned to the hunter’s son and encouraged him to purchase his father a new blaze orange hat for Christmas. “Nothing says love like safety equipment,” Warden Mike said.
The blaze orange rule requires hunters to have their upper body covered by at least 50 percent of the color and 50 percent of the hat, provided a hat is worn. “You can buy a lot of orange caps for that,” Warden Mike said to the pair. There was no citation, just smiles and thanks.
He also spotted a group of three young hunters resting alongside the road. Warden Mike stopped and turned it into a lesson about why they should not hold their firearms with its stocks on the ground and thumbs covering the muzzles. Warden Mike explained how that is a bad habit to form with unloaded guns – since it would surely be repeated with a loaded gun.
And he also did some patrolling on the Oneida Nation reservation where he has jurisdiction over non-tribal members. He gets along well with the Oneida wardens being part Oneida himself.
To read the tweets, reader feedback and see photos from today’s ride, visit www.twitter.com/WDNR. You also will be able to see the tweets from the previous four wardenridealongs. To view the interaction, you will need a twitter account.