We have some crazy laws in Oklahoma that could easily get you in trouble. I've never been checked for anything in all my years trapping. I think as long as you are not doing anything stupid and/or get called in for something - you will not have a problem. One thing that would get a lot of guys in trouble are out legal trap laws. One example is double spring traps have to be offset - so a closed jaw #11 or #1 coilspring is not legal. No snares. Bodygrips were illegal but that changed a couple years ago but have to be under water now. I have traps that are legal in Arkansas but not in Oklahoma and some legal in Oklahoma but not Arkansas.

I did cause a guy to get a ticket. Kind of a long story so bear with me. My brother-in-law had bought about 300 acres and he went with me to do some preseason turkey scouting (around March) and I was also thinking about trapping.. We had stopped and doing some walking around. He is not a trapper but had rode with me a couple times. When we got back to the pickup he said I think someone has been trapping as he found a spot that looked like where a trap had been. We walked back out and sure enough there was a dirt hole set. When you pull your trap there is usually a low spot where the trap was and this was still level. I kicked in the dirt and sure enough I kicked up a set trap. It had an Arkansas tag attached which only had a CID number (legal in AR but not OK). It was attached to a dead log that any critter larger than a skunk would get away from. That was a little confusing as Arkansas was fifty miles away and trapper driving that far would have known how to anchor a trap. My bother-in-law didn't want to pursue it as he had only owned the land a couple months and we figured they had just missed the trap when they pulled. I thought oh well I got a free trap out of the deal. A mosty shiny (untreated) closed jaw Duke 1 3/4 (not legal in Oklahoma). I spent a little time doing the normal adjustments that you have to do to a stock Duke that they hadn't done. I go back in April turkey hunting and happen to walk past that area and low and behold another trap was set back. This was not close to a property line and at least 200 yards from a road so not an easy place to get to. This time they had wired to a rock and not a good wire job at that. Probably would have held a possum but a coon would have got away. Again, by brother-in-law didn't want to deal with it but said I could. I was still really confused about it all, but talked to the local game warden to have him look into it. I guess he called Arkansas Game and fish to track down the customer ID number. Come to find out a trapper in Arkansas had loaned some traps to a non-trapper friend in Oklahoma that was a neighbor to the property. He was trying to catch coyotes that had been catching his chickens. The warden let the guy off with the minimum fine but I had to return the traps. Grrrr!

Nothing against COs in general, one of my best friends for a few years was a CO. Had one in my home town area that was a real (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) though. He loved to give tickets whenever he could, threatened to give me one a couple of times, but mostly as a way to try intimidate me from trapping on land he wanted to trap himself.

Seems dnr is out to find a reason to ticket people rather than just making sure rules are being followed. I feel many times they have opportunities to teach people rather than tickets them when in the gray a area. I think most states need to simplify the rules so there is no reason a person has to really think or guess. Make the rules easy for anyone to understand. Keep the outdoors fun and not push people away.

Several years back, a game warden I knew pulled up in the driveway a few days after season ended. He said "were you trapping up so and so road?" I said "yes until season ended." He pulled a gray fox with a snare on it out of his truck and said "I think you forgot one of your snares and it wasn't tagged. " I said "I didn't have any snares set in that area all season and my snares don't look like that." I showed him my snares were different cable and locks and had tags. He said sorry and ended up giving me the fox.

Who hasn’t?

1 ticket for fishing with out a salmon tag reporting card on me, left it on the dresser, court dropped the fine when i sent a photo copy of it in.

Had several encounters from good to bad, some think everyone is a poacher and other are turly there to protect the resource.

2 encounters stand out first hunting frozen flooded feilds for geese the warden pulled up and glassed use with binos andcwe stood up , he realized it was 3 teenagers and left, not sure if he didn't push because we were teenagers or didn't push because he didn't trust teenagers lol.

The next was a volunteer game guy that Or uses to check tags and closed road violations, he snuck into camp after dark and dinner and demanded tags and licenses. Got awful but hurt when we ran him out of camp as we were camping and not hunting and if he wanted to check hunting licenses he could catch us hunting it was illegal to hunt and drink beer but not to drink beer and camp.
The state police warden showed up the next night and politely helloed the camp and asked what happened, we chatted offered dinner and a drink. We showed him licenses because he wasn't a jerk and then he would leave us alone. And he did.

I only trap on my farm to keep predators and nest raiders down. Couldn't imagine ever having a reason to be checked unless a neighbor reported me for something.

Not trapping related, but I've had more negative encounters with Federal folks than anyone local. All around water fowling. They give me the impression that they are there to find something, whereas the local fellers do a quick check and move on.

Hmm, one for setting within 1000’ of a campground. About 900’. One for setting to close to natural bait, a bs law that came with our area being included in a “linx protection zone” even though there aren’t linx around here nor ever have been. One for catching a bobcat in a coyote snare after cat season had closed. Game warden found it so I didn’t get a chance to claim a non-target catch myself. But other than that, no.

The year I turned 16 was the first year Nebraska changed the permit dates to calendar year, rather than end of beaver and muskrat season. Season ended Mar 24th but under new change, my permit ended Jan 1.

I was trapping muskrats on a lake for a guy who owned a bunch of lots there. Another person on the lake thought I was trespassing so they called the sheriff. Sheriff checked it out and said I was fine but the warden was on his way also so he wanted me to hang around. I had a high school buddy with me who didn’t have a license. The warden was giving him the business, then he realized my license was expired by a little over a month due to the new dates. I was unaware. He told my buddy to buy a license at the local sporting goods store and that he would check later.

I wasn’t so lucky, before I knew what was happening two more wardens showed up. They made me pull traps while they watched with binoculars. I turned my back to them and stuffed any more caught rats up under the bank, 3 or 4 if I remember right. They followed me to my house, about 20 miles away and took all my skinned and dried rats. I got charged with liquidated damages on all the rats and trapping without a license. $680 some dollars. Coincidentally, it was county government day so a bunch of classmates and a teacher from my school were in the courtroom watching.

I almost got a contempt of court charge when the judge, actually a tree hugging neighbor of ours, said “and let that be a lesson to the rest of you kids that think spotlighting raccoons at night is ok! It won’t be tolerated!!”. I stood up and said “hay! I ain’t no spotlighter!!!” She whacked the hammer down and said one more word and you'll be held in contempt!! I caught my teachers eye and he put his finger to his lips in the shush motion.

To add insult to injury, that was also the same year Nebraska didn’t require kids under 16 to have a trapping license. Before that kids under 16 could hunt and fish without a license, but not trap. I had purchased a trapping license every year since I was 11. Or rather my mom purchased the first few for me.

What a kick in the nads that was.

Used to be a couple outlaw brothers from Beatrice NE that bought fur and also made some dogproof coon traps. Local warden followed them down the Big Blue River at night in a rowboat. They were spotlighting beaver and shooting them. He waited until they crossed into Kansas and busted them for spotlighting, shooting, and transporting illegal fur across state line. No KS permit. They lost all privileges for many years.

No trapping tickets. Most of my trapping buddies are game wardens of some sort.

I did get a ticket for riding a quad on a non-ORV trail. 100% my fault. Just bought my quad and wanted to put some hours on it. Had no idea the snowmachine trails/two-tracks in that county were closed to ORVs. Took my ticket and moved on.

I believe a fraction of the stories I hear about tickets and game warden interactions. Most are either half the story or never happened at all.

I have not but easily could have when trapping beaver on water ways that rise and fall. Make a set thats only legal covered by water. Here a 330 and mb 750 or #5 only to find them 2' on dry land the next morning

It a CO wanted to that would be an instant violation though not intentionally done. Having no idea the dams down stream would be opend and level lowered.

Since I only trap my place and problems for friends on private land I have had no trapping related interactions with game wardens and prefer to keep it that way.

When I was a kid it was legal to float the river and call/shine coons as long as the boat didn’t have a motor and you had permission. Beaver and muskrats were not legal to shoot.

I spent countless nights floating the Elkhorn River for coons.

Never got a trapping violation ticket. As P.F. mentioned, I could have when water levels changed or something out of the ordinary occurred. I've been fortunate to have spent almost all of my 76 years fishing, hunting, or trapping. I've had numerous interactions with wardens and LE. I have known some for their entire career. I've seen young letter of the law wardens mellow out as they get older. I can honestly say I've not met a Wisconsin warden i wouldn't trust. A few I know as friends. Even though I didn't agree with all the regulations over the years i tried to follow them.
One winter i almost caught a warden by the leg in a 330 set under the ice in below 0 weather. It didn't turn out well for the warden when he fell in a hole i had covered with snow while he was seeing if my traps were tagged. He was lucky as it could have been a lot worse.
The few federal wardens I've met seem to be a little more strict in their interpretation of some regulations than the state.
All in all, Wisconsin is lucky to have the great crew it has had.

No ticket but a lesson learned. I think it was back around 1980ish. I was 12, it was the day before trapping season in NJ. so my brother, me and cousin decided to set that day so we could have a catch opening day. I think we had 3 box traps and 3 conibears. When we cam out there was another trapper waiting for us. We had caught a muskrat with our hands. Anyway he took everything and wanted us to come back to his house that night with my father. We didn't know what to expect, and we were pretty scared. We went back that night and was surprised the trapper knew my father and knew my Uncle. He basically gave us a speech about following the rules and gave us the traps back but kept the muskrat. LOL . That trapper was George Wacha. I know some of you will know the name. He was still leaving in NJ at the time. I later found out, I was in his spot. He was scouting to set the following day.

Funny story, sort of.
About 15 years ago a friend of mine was trapping muskrats on Crab creek in eastern Washington. He would put in at a public boat launch and pull out a few miles downstream. This is a popular waterfowl hunting area and great muskrat trapping.

While he was camped out in a public camping area near the boat launch, a State game warden, er, I mean "Wildlife Police" (their new official name) stopped by for a chat, the guy showed a lot of interest in my friends floating cage traps (cage trapping State), visited a bit, and then left.

A few day later the same cop shows up and writes Mike a ticket for trapping in an area that's closed to trapping. Mike asked the guy where it is closed since everyone had trapped that creek for years. Cop says "about two miles downstream it's closed for about half a mile". Mike asks him; "where does it say that in the trapping regulation", cops says, "oh, it's not in the trapping regulations, it's in the duck hunting regulations".

Welcome to Washington State

Mike fought it on principle, about $20K in attorney fees and a year or so later, he won.

One thing he learned is that the WDFW keeps, off the record, a dossier on various hunters and trappers that they deem to be too successful; to them it's obvious that if you are consistantly successful you must be doing something illegal. They had/have a file on him.

I never a ticket but someone turned me into the tips hot line.
I had a 160 coni-bear set for mink on a old beaver house.
160's are legal ground sets here, by a road and a closed camp ground.
I was 40 some feet from the road, and few hundred feet from camp.
So fully legal if it was open, road set back is 25 feet.

Warden has waiting for me up the road, he drove up as I was going out to check
and said he got a tip call about my set.
We read over the regulations together and he says that looks to close.
And got his tape measure out.
I said you hold the tape and I I'll walk it out. The look on his face priceless