As a kid I dreamed of being an NFL quarterback, and along with most of my friends what I saw on TV was a life of fame and glory. Back then it was Sunday football and a Monday night game, and we knew nothing of the sort about off season training, the pain of injuries and physical and mental demands of pounding absorbed by the body. Reality of what those players went through was nothing compared to what fans assumed they knew. Now my hero’s of thirty years ago are showing the wear and tear of a life dedicated to football and their bodies are paying for the games we were watching on TV. As I now watch 40 year old quarterback Bret Favre play, I think of the strain of a family, a short off season and even issues liking ‘working’ every Sunday for a pro athlete. And the life of a game warden through the eye’s of most hunters is mildly comparable to that of pro athlete…without the pay I’ll add with a smile.

Indeed most hunters imagine the duties of a game warden as patrolling the backwoods, checking hunters in the field and having every oak forest as an office, the gurgling creeks as a water cooler and breaking dawn as the flip of the switch to open the day as work begins. But trust me from first hand work as a game warden, similar to the imaginary life of a professional football player, it’s not what you think.

A warden might wish to diagram the day up like a sure fire touchdown, but odds are the morning stroll into the office is peppered with calls to service, ongoing investigations and phone calls to other wardens coordinating work details.

Before I dig into a typical morning, remember life as a game warden is working weekends, nights, holiday’s–when the rest of the world is playing, the game wardens are working. Yes, they are full aware when the accept the position their job won’t be a typical 8AM-5PM type of a job, but hunters and anglers can better appreciate the work of the game warden. They are a dedicated legion of conservation law enforcement who invest their life and exchange the typical family Monday-Friday work week with the in and out buzz of life keeping wild places safe and those who enjoy them legal.

On a fall morning a game warden if not paged out on a late night shining report, will roll out of bed around 4:30AM, slumber out of bed and instinctively strap on the gun and gear, prepare a little lunch and sneak out the door, to keep from waking the wife and kids as the rest of the hunting world is anxiously unwrapping a precious weekend hunting. Indeed while the rest of thew world plays thousands of game wardens will be hard at work. Most game wardens have thousands of square miles and on the drive to check morning duck or big game hunter they’ll be following up on phone calls with neighboring wardens over recent cases and coordinating for field checks later on in the day. Even over night voice mail can fill up with calls from other law enforcement reporting recent violations which filter in through sheriff’s Departments.

The game warden will pull up well before sun rise with an observation detail to check big game, waterfowl or whichever game and fish activity is needing attention. And more often than not a few hours of field observation and checks for compliance results in citations, evidence gathering and report writing, and depending on the severity of the case can results in more time and resources dedicated to putting a case together for the prosecuting attorney. While it may appear rather vanilla, it’s all part of the job, which goes on behind the scenes and is imperative.

As morning gives way to afternoon, many hunters break for lunch a few might only have a morning hunt allocated and others will continue hunting and fishing through the heart of the day. A game warden too may head back home for lunch with his wife and family, take a few hours to rest up for the evening hunt, but more often than not, more calls to service have filtered in and your local warden continues to respond to the needs of hunters and landowners. All the details to work out as the clock winds down and the wardens prepare to take the field again. And just like my hero’s from day’s gone by, for the most part, the fans only see the ‘fun’