Game Wardens, in MD, are not a hunters or fisherman's friend. Not even close to it. When I lived there, they had a lot of new young ones who thought that they were policemen, with police powers, when they are game wardens, not real cops. MD hires their State Policemen to a far higher standard than their Game Wardens. MD is a very Liberal state with most of the top people firmly in a liberal mindset of I know best attitude about everything and the game wardens reflect this.
Part of the problem is numbers. Thirty years ago they started expanding the force from about fifty to five times that now. But at the same time the numbers hunters has crashed. There were 262 Wardens for the state which has 23 counties and the city of Baltimore to police. So figure 10 working Wardens per county. Now most counties are less than thirty miles square. They trip over each other and you get multiple people doing the same things. I've been checked three times, in a single day, by three different game wardens while quail hunting. Any chance to write up a citation, for even the most trivial thing has to be done by them because their is nothing to do and they need to justify their time. The same applies for their regulation of fishing. Just over whelming numbers worry the heck out of people. They are not well loved or even that respected by those who have frequent contact with them.
My contact with game wardens has taken me to more than a dozen states hunting and fishing. Never had a single problem with them other than the ones in MD. None are like the MD ones. I am sure that there are some who are out there, but all the ones I have encountered are regular guys doing a job. It is a mindset that they get from the top.
