I finished a conservation law enforcement training academy in April. I can understand why the DEM guy might have been acting the way he was. Out of my class of 35 there were only 3 fisherman in the group, and they are more the worm and bobber types, and only 2 hunted, and one only "hunted" shoopting preserves with his dad, he was a harvard grad afterall. I made damn sure he understood that he has never hunted before. In all the role playing scenarios we did it was blatantly obvious that they dont understand sportsmen. One instance was an "officer" approaching a duck hunter with his plastic gun trained on the perp, oh i mean legal duck hunter. Some of the people that took the MA EPO civil service exam were blatantly anto hunting. Wanting to end all hunting because they are memebrs of PETA or atleast very sympathetic to their cause
. Its going to take these rookies a while to understand the sportsmen as not being evil bastards but people who make their jobs have meaning. Just like any law enforcemnt job, if you look at everyone as being a criminal and treat people like crap you will be workin towards an early career change. I wanted to work in RI with the DEM but dont have the right kind of educational background. Which is prolly good for you guys that want to keep your spots, cuz that is one of the best perks of the job, finding the good spots, unfortunatly i dont think they get a chance to fish and hunt enough. Just imagine night vision goggles, korkers, and an aquaskins top all paid for by the state because they are essential tools of the job.
i got breifly checked by an EPO at the canal. He looked at me and my equipment and figured i wasnt you average short taker, we had a breif chat and he watched BassBAbe fight a fish and left before it even got landed. A nice guy who fished and understands fisherman, the kind of guy you want on the job.