James!! If you seek interaction ( and enjoy it) with CO’s, that is your deal. I dont seek that sort of attention. You make your living on the water, I dont. Again, read the 4th!!! I dont drive 4 hours, and portage a kayak a mile through brush to find a hidden Lake, to have a lovely conversation with an armed Warden, over something he has no jurisdiction ( unless you consent)
The amendment gurantees your right to privacy, even in public, unless ” the facts and circumstances within the arresting officers knowledge are sufficient to warrent a prudent person to believe that a suspect has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime”
When there are grounds for suspicion that a person has committed a crime, AND PUBLIC JUSTICE AND THE GOOD OF THE COMMUNITY require that the matter should be examined, there is said to be “probable cause”
Again, if you are not doing anything to be endangering “public justice, and the good of the community”, you should be left secure in your persons, houses, papers and effects, as guranteed by the constritution.
A CO doing his job out on the water, or in the woods is certainly entitled to approach you and check your credentials that permit any kind of consumptive activety that you might be doing that require a permit or liscense.
That contact does not give them an open door to check everything else NOT related to activety related to the resource. That, is changing, thanks to the influx of new money, and peoples attitudes who are willing to go along with it!!
I need to elaborate that my negative contact with LE hasent always been with CO’s.
Forest Rangers have the same expanded powers that CO’s do, and the same tendancy to abuse them.
Ever do any camping in Public Parks or Forests?
Would you feel comfortable if someone was watching you with night vision goggels as you sit around a campfire?
How about if you and your 20 y/o boys went camping, and you allowed the boy to drink a few beers around the fire. You go to another campsite to visit with other people and come back to find the boys in hand cuffs, with breathalyzers hanging out of thier mouths. You later learn in court that they were video taped, from the bushes. Even with that evidence, the boys were never observed drinking. Instead, the Rangers set up a sting ( in less than an hour) Raided the site, and contended a pile of beer cans( yours)and the smell of alchohol on them( from the beer that you, legally, as guardian, allowed them to drink earlier) constituted underage drinking. Of course, the boys tried to defend the allegation, and resisted ( another charge)
By that time, another Squad arrives with a Canine unit, and proceeds to rip not only the “offenders” camping gear apart, but an adults ( mine), who had been gone no more than an hour and a half.
It cost me the weekend, some gear, allot of stress, and $1,500 in legal fees to get them to dismiss an allegation that was not even illegal.
The only reason this happened is that the Rangers went out of thier way to observe law abiding citizens. They used exspensive techology to do so, and did it not because anyone was endangering public justice or the good of the community, they did it because they can. And they can, because of people like you, and those who are willing to consent to the dissolution of the 4th amendment.
And this elaboration is just one of many similiar encounters with LE within the DNR, and NONE of them involve fish and game conservation.
I say keep up the good work MN DNR 
Doubt he follows these threads, but if he does 
Keep up the good work. Put the 
down on the bad guys, and keep doing the great job protecting our resource!! 
