Sebastes,
The issue with the Snohomish County District Court system is that they no longer want agencies to actually issue citations on the spot, they'd rather have the court mail the citation. So that is why a deputy or even another WDFW Officer wouldn't know if an individual has been cited.

Snohomish County has done this for all law violations, most other municipal and district courts are starting to do this with mandatory court appearance crimes (most WDFW are not mandatory appearances, just fines). The reasoning is that when you are issued a mandatory court citation (for example underage drinking) you must appear in court within 15 days. If the officer does not physically issue the citation but rather sends it to the court, the court has 2 years to file charges on you. Courts are doing this in a way to ease their scheduling. So for example you could potentially be contacted by LE for underage drinking at 20.5 and not have your first court appearance till you are 22.5 (2 years later).