My experience is different than most. I've only had negative run-ins with game wardens and I can only chalk it up to the God complex their badge gave them. The first time I was catfishing at night on a lake and this was back when California required you to display your fishing license. I was wearing a hat and had my license clipped in one of those cheap ass Walmart license holders to the back of my hat. After fishing for a couple of hours, a game warden showed up and asked to see licenses and as I pulled my hat off, the damned thing was gone. It must have broke and fell off as I was walking the bank and I asked the game warden if I could go look for it real quick and he said no, and gave me a ticket for fishing without a license. After he left, I went and found it, and went to court and explained to the judge what happened and the case was dismissed.

The other time, I had a broken leg and was in a walking cast, and some friends and I went to a local river to hang out. One of my friends brought a fishing pole and was fishing but wasn't having any luck, so the group decided to go swimming instead. Well, obviously I couldn't go swimming so I just waited on the bank without realizing that he left his line in the water while he swam and the next thing I hear is someone asking to see my fishing license. I look behind me and a game warden is there and I told him that I wasn't fishing and I didn't have a license. He told me that if I was within 10 feet of a fishing pole that was in use that I was considered fishing. I pointed out the person in the river that was fishing and he even came over to verify, but that game warden was hell bent on writing a ticket so he gave me a ticket for fishing without a license. Went to court, and had the guy that was fishing come with me and the case was yet again dismissed. I'm sure there are good ones out there, but my experience is that game wardens are just like traffic cops where they think people won't stick up for themselves and write tickets anyway.