My newest game warden and I had thrown the idea around at one of my antelope check stations. He'd heard the rumours in town that some folks wait until after I'd closed down my station to bring their game in. With most everybody knowing I shut down at dark.

Just ain't safe to shut down traffic on a busy highway at night. At least, not with just one person. And not in the dark.

But if you had more people? And lights?

Well, that'd be fun.

Not really new, either. Just about every warden I've had has wanted to run a night-time check station at one time or another. But it'd been a few years, so he set it up. And dusk on opening day found us setting up lights and three parking lanes on my check station pullout.

First truck arrived before we even had the lights out. The warden's setting out traffic cones as I check the hunter's deer and tag. And I ask the warden...

"You want to talk to this man?"

And while we've never established it as such, he immediately understands that is code for...

"You want to talk to this man."

And there's the first citation of the night.

By the time dark has completely arrived, we've got the oher warden, a federal ranger, and a deputy sheriff helping run the station. The deputy takes point, stopping traffic on the highway (the better for her to smell alcohol on a driver's breath), and directs any trucks with game down into our lanes.

There the officers check paperwork, while I check critters.

And the ranger takes reports on violations on the land, and checks ATV registrations.

And heaven forbid you get asked to pull up to the front, near one of the warden trucks.

Time for some extra paperwork. Press hard, because you're signing five copies.

Not really a lot of violations, and nothing blatant, but enough to make it worth the wardens' while. A couple tickets each, and a few more things to investigate at a later time.

Most the time, we can barely keep up, filling all three parking lanes. But by a little after nine o'clock, traffic has thinned enough to send the deputy back to town.

By ten o'clock, it's been fifteen minutes without a vehicle, and we head in, too.

Checked over 75 deer, antelope or elk during the day. A busy opening day any year. (Especially since the boss who promised to come down and help never showed. But hey, he's the boss.) Got another 35 animals in the three hours after dark.

And we certainly got the deterent value out of those three hours. By eight o'clock the next morning, people who hadn't even been there were asking the wardens about our night station.