If a ticket is written and the person contests it with a day in court, doesn't the office who wrote the ticket have to also appear in the court?

If so, THAT is a waste of state resources....far greater than the cost of the ticket.

If it's uncontestable, than yeah, ticket the crap out of everybody on the river.

As a game office once told me "You are all guilty of something on the water right now. It's our job to find out what it is and issue you a citation for it."

No joke.

I've only received one citation. Was a teenage and get a citation for failing to punch a fish on my card. I always kept a pen on a string on my fishing vest and always punch my fish. I lost the pen. Officers checked me at my truck, searched it, found a golf pencil burried behind all the crap on the floor, and gave me the riot act because of it. Said if I truly wanted to punch that fish, I would have used a piece of lead, my blood, or spent a half hour searching my truck to find that golf pencil on the floor, behind the cheeseburger wrapper. Since I knew the judge(s) in my town, I took the citation in to him and he dropped the fine to $5. Helped that I took him fishing and helped him catch and land his first two steelhead just a few weeks prior.