I sat down the other day to write an article about night vision scopes. While I was researching it, I discovered that, with a few exceptions, the use of night vision for hunting is illegal in Oregon. Whoops! Guess I won’t advocate for that.

That got me thinking about all of the rules and regulations that go along with hanging out outdoors, and why we need to be familiar with them. Unfortunately, ignorance is not a good excuse when you are having a chat with law enforcement.

Many moons ago, a friend and I were hunting in Washington. After a long hike we were driving back to camp when Fish and Game stopped us. Neither of us had a shell in the chamber, but we did have bullets in the magazines of our rifles. That $250 ticket hurt.

When I was a kid, I shot a nice whitetail in Idaho. At the check station they asked me what unit I had killed it in. When I told them, they said, “You better hope not. That unit closed last week.” After we got my heart restarted we consulted a map and it was determined that I had shot it in an open unit and would not be spending the rest of my life in jail.

Little experiences like these have made me much more aware of the need to understand the rules before I go outside to play. Laws can be fickle, and can change from unit to unit in hunting and from pond to stream to lake in fishing.

Minimum calibers, point restrictions, live bait or artificial lures, size restrictions and many more rules can change from place to place or even from year to year. What was legal last time may not be this go-around.

While fishing in Alaska, I caught a monster 47-inch lingcod once and had to release it because you could only keep them between 35 and 45 inches. That was a new one for me.

Laws don’t only apply to hunting and fishing. Want to take your mountain bike for a trail ride? Better check to see if bikes are allowed. On many trails around Grant County, they’re not.

Camping, fires and even mushroom picking are subject to regulation. Did you know that for personal use, you can only have less than a gallon of mushrooms in your possession? Any more is considered commercial and requires a permit.

The Forest Service and Fish and Game websites are a good place to check out the current regulations before you head out into the great outdoors. An unexpected ticket can really put a damper on your weekend.

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