Better Never Than Late
By Agent Jason Gernados

On November 27, 2003 Agents Jason Gernados and Roy Pier were on patrol in the area of St. Bernard known as Bayou Bienvenue marsh. This area of marshland is ideal for duck hunters who do not have boats. The marsh borders a heavily traveled highway in St. Bernard Parish known as Paris Road. There are a fair amount of ponds and broken marsh, which at times are good for duck hunting. And the best part is that the hunting area is easily accessible by paddling a pirogue from the bank.

Due to several complaints of late shooting activity from this particular area, Agents Gernados and Pier set up covert surveillance. At 3:30 p.m. three hunters arrived by truck, offloaded pirogues, duck decoys, and shotguns, and then paddled off into the marsh. At this point it was a few minutes past 3:30 p.m. and these hunters were not in any ponds yet.

On this day, legal shooting time ended at 5:01 according to the Federal Migratory Game Bird Regulations Pamphlet. Agents Gernados and Pier figured that this would be an excellent group of hunters to set up on and watch for late shots due to the fact that there was less than an hour and a half left for legal shooting.

After the subjects set out their decoys and hid themselves in the marsh, the agents paddled in closer to watch the hunt, from the first shots at 3:49 p.m until the last shots at 5:42 p.m. There were a total of 24 shots taken, 18 of which were taken after legal shooting hours. The agents made the stop when the subjects had arrived back at their vehicles. Three ducks were shot after legal shooting time. Each subject shot one duck illegally. Federal citations were issued to each subject for hunting migratory game birds during illegal hours and two gray ducks and one blue-winged teal were seized.