Some notes from this weekend's check stations:

-south highway:

First hunter of Saturday was a duck hunter, with six teal. Now, I didn't remember duck season was open (but yes, I know it's wabbit season). Fortunately a warden was there for her morning handout of Two-Bite brownies (a new addiction I have passed on), so I hustled back to the truck to check this year's limits while she checked his paperwork.

Duck seasons are a little different in our country. Regulations, seasons and bag limits are based upon flyways. Our state lies in the Central and Pacific flyways, which naturally use the Continental Divide as their boundary.

'Course that's just a low ridge of hills five miles west of town (see my sunset photos for Saturday... that's the Divide). Which means east of those hills you can shoot six ducks, but on the other side you can shoot seven. On one side you can shoot three scaup, but four on the other. All of your ducks can be wood ducks on one side of those hills, but on the other there had better not be more than two. Mergansers count as part of your limit on one side, but on the other they have their own limit. Seasons are about a week apart, too. Etcetera, etcetera.

Now this was a clever hunter. In the time it takes to go home and drop off his ducks and return, he was back asking if he can now go shoot another limit on the Pacific side of those hills.

Nope.

I don't know why the answer is no, I just know it is no. And has been for years, since that question came up the first or second hunting season I worked here. And the judge said 'no.'

'Course, we got a new judge this past year...

But warden is a stickler for legal points (naturally), and looked the regulation up to show the hunter.

The answer is no. There in black and white.

Nice try, though.

Next time I complain about being bored on check station, remind me about today. Shortly after the duck hunter episodes, a fellow driving a truck of the company that used to sponsor our volleyball team came out. With questions.

Wanted to know what gates and fences were doing on public land. Had maps and directions and everything to these gates he had found.

Took me a while to realize that he actually thought he had discovered a great crime. Had to explain to him that the public land agencies are probably the biggest fence builders in this country. That fences mainly exist to control cows, not to mark who owns what.

Then he stayed.

And stayed.

This new import from California talked, and talked and talked. One of those people who just assumes what he has to say is interesting to anyone else.

It wasn't.

Or, most of it wasn't.

If I let him ramble, he just went on autopilot and kept on articulating all sorts of experiences of no interest to anyone but him. I tried several times to ask questions that might actually convey new knowledge (I know now that pouring concrete underwater is not a problem.... the concrete just pushes the water aside and sets up just fine).

But this motor mouth went on for fifty minutes, non-stop. My first cup of coffee was dead cold before I could get back in the truck, and I was terribly grateful for the two truckloads of hunters that came in so I could finally walk away.

There are things worse than boredom.

According to both vehicles of aspen-lookers that stopped by, the leaves on our aspen are just starting to change. Another week or so, if we don't get a frost.

The second truck of duck hunters was two young men, and one's son. Their first comment was "This is the check station? We just thought you were some highway guy waiting for someone." Their derogatory tone is probably not a good tactic to use with someone who is checking your compliance with complicated laws and regulations.

Despite their license plate, obviously new residents.

Yup, one from Louisiana, the other from Tennessee. Pen guards. Been here since spring.

Complained that they have to wait a year to become residents, and hence were limited to hunting only ducks.

Got no sympathy from me. Nor anyone else who had to wait the full year, I suspect.

Fellow came by at dark after sighting in his rifle. Trying to contact one of the wardens.

Not important. Just has a dirt bike to sell, and heard the warden was looking to buy one. And can't get an answer at his home phone.

"What shift is he working?" he asked.

I laughed in his face. Out loud. Literally. Seriously.

Three times.

Shifts?

(The other warden, upon hearing this story, suggested I should have told him they were working the 24/7 shift.)

This is a note to all of you people who have the tinted windows all the way around on your vehicle.

You have no right to feel snubbed if no one waves back as you drive by.

They can't see you, remember?

One of the last vehicles was two long-term friends and close neighbors. With a younger man I didn't know, and a young woman who never looked up. With her antelope.

The name on the antelope tag I don't recognize. So I ask for her hunter safety card, and conservation stamp. She is surprised at the request, and finally looks me in the face.

Ohhh, crap.

I know her. Their daughter. And yes, I heard she got married. There's her maiden name on the card, the one I have known since I first met her.

When she was less than nine months old. Strapped in the back of the old topless yellow jeep, high in the Seminoes. On the day her Mom got her first elk.

"Grouse, don't you recognize our baby?" her mother asks.

Yes, now I do.

Crap.

- north highway:

Almost had a violation before I could get to Sunday's check station. One of the pronghorn, a buck, that hang out at the edge of town got smooshed on the highway. Recently.

Good solid hit. All legs broken, looks like he was dead and immobile before he hit the reflector post. Half a car of plastic grill pieces on the shoulder of the road.

One big piece had "Ford" in fine print by the part number (Knowledge which impressed the hell out of the patrolman who stopped by later in the day, and mentioned the accident).

But before I could park my rig across from the carcass and walk over to check the teeth for age, the pickup that pulled the illegal u-turn up ahead whipped in alongside the buck and parked. With the tailgate immediately besides the buck.

Another new Pen guard. Wanting to know if he could take the buck (claiming it was a huge buck... it wasn't, another reason to know he was a new resident).

Told him abruptly no, he couldn't have it. But have no doubt if I'd been thirty seconds later, could have called a warden about this guy hauling in a roadkill.

About an hour after we set up station, a pickup pulled off the highway and went to the low rocky knoll behind us.

And three guys began shooting. Shotgunning clay pigeons.

Technically far enough away that the heelers and I should be safe, but it would have been nice if they had aimed themselves a little farther away from the highway.

Needless to say, I had a heeler on my feet instantly. And after I drug her back out, the little maskless heeler sat and trembled in the back seat for most of an hour, until they shot up their box of clays.

And her sister was no better.

Hunter stopped by with two fawns taken on doe/fawn licenses. And claimed he had been checked out in the field. Knew the name of the warden that checked him, which was boss's boss.

Only problem was, the tags weren't initialed.

But unlikely the hunter would lie, so I sent him on his way home. After writing down the data, just in case. And then called boss's boss.

Yep, he remembered him. And remembered that he had failed to initial the tags as the hunter drove away. And just knew someone would come across that hunter again. Never mind the other dozen that he did right.

Just naturally had to be me.