Hunt Like the Warden’s Watchingfrom Roy Garrity

From Roy Garrity, game warden for 31 years

The best deer hunters I ever checked were old men. This book is what they knew.

Cover of Hunt Like the Warden’s Watching: Big Bucks, Every Season, and What the Old Men Knew. Roy, a grey-haired man in a brown vest, stands with his arms crossed.

Most of the hunters a game warden writes up are decent people who didn’t know. They shot a few minutes early, tagged the deer the way their dad always had, or followed a wounded buck over a fence without asking anybody. Roy wrote them up for thirty-one years, and wished somebody had told them sooner.

Hunt Like the Warden’s Watching is that talk. It’s 87 chapters on big bucks, the shot, finding what you hit, hunting past sixty and the rules that get good hunters written up, written the way Roy talks on the channel: plain, honest and straight.

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The math

One bad morning at the tailgate costs more than this book.

Every deer you bring home is worth real money: a freezer full of meat you’d otherwise buy at the store, and a tag you paid for. Lose it, and all of that goes with it.

The fastest way to lose one is at the tailgate. A tag you meant to fill out back at the truck, a shot a few minutes before legal light, and the warden takes the deer and writes the ticket. Here’s what that costs.

Every state’s fines are different, so we used one real example: Wisconsin, one of the biggest deer-hunting states.

One deer · taken at the tailgateYou loseWith the book
The venisonAbout 52 pounds of boneless meat, priced as store ground beef · Part VIII
−$360$360 kept
The tag you filledA resident gun deer license, gone with the deer · Ch 67, 76
−$24$24 kept
The ticketTag not validated on the spot, or a shot before legal light · Ch 15, 76
−$343.50$0
One deer
−$727.50$0 lost
About $728 riding on every deer.That’s more than 18 copies of the book. The book costs $39, once.

Hunting out of state? A nonresident license costs far more ($200 instead of $24 in Wisconsin), and losing your license in one state can mean losing it back home too. Chapters 68 and 79.

Where these numbers come from. The meat: an average deer gives about 52 pounds of boneless meat (from an Ohio wildlife department study of 115 deer), priced like store ground beef at $6.89 a pound (the US government’s average price, July 2026). The tag and the ticket: Wisconsin’s official 2026 prices. These are examples, not a promise. Your deer, your state and your fine will be different.

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Roy’s one rule

Hunt like the warden’s already watching. Because he is.

“That isn’t a threat. Most days, out in the hills, nobody is watching you at all, and that’s the point.”

The hunter who does it right when nobody’s there never has a bad morning at a tailgate, never loses a deer he’s already earned, and gets home when he said he would.

One thing you won’t find is one state’s law dressed up as everybody’s. The rules change every year and at every state line, so the book shows you what the rule usually is and how to find yours.

Book Facts

Serving size1 chapter (about 7 pages)
Servings per book87
Pages751
Parts12
Chapters87
Field guides9
Printable pages23
Print size16 pt
“Short Version” boxes87
IndexYes
Sources listedState agencies, hunter ed & more
Filler 0gSubscriptions 0

Ingredients: Thirty-one years of tailgates, state regulations, hunter-education rules, twelve old men, Carol’s map on the fridge, a black Lab named Sadie.

Contains: strong opinions about pumpkin piles.

Format: PDF (US Letter). Reads on a tablet, computer or phone.

What’s inside

From counting trucks the night before to the tags in the drawer.

Every chapter stands on its own and ends with The Short Version, the whole chapter in a few big-print lines. If something is coming up this week, turn straight to it.

IThe Old Men and the Big Bucks12 chapters

“The biggest bucks I ever checked came in the back of old pickups, driven by men who’d hunted the same ground for fifty years.”

  1. 1The Same Ground, Every Year
  2. 2The Wind, and the Way In and Out
  3. 3Where Big Bucks Hide: The Ugly Little Place by the Road
  4. 4Signs a Big Buck Is Close
  5. 5Rubs, Scrapes and the Road He Walks
  6. 6The Rut, Week by Week, North and South
  7. 7The Morning After a Front
  8. 8Sitting All Day in the Cold: The Bucket and the Blanket
  9. 9Calling and Rattling the Old Way
  10. 10Old-Timer Tricks That Still Work, and the Three That’ll Get You Written Up
  11. 11Small Ground: Hunting the Back Forty
  12. 12Passing Bucks, and Why the Old Men Did
IIOpening Morning and Gun Week6 chapters

“By noon on opening day I knew which men had done their thinking the night before.”

  1. 13The Night Before: Counting Trucks
  2. 14Opening Morning, Hour by Hour
  3. 15Know the Minute: Shooting Hours
  4. 16Where Bucks Go When the Woods Fill Up With Orange
  5. 17The Last Weekend
  6. 18December Bucks: The Late Season and the Muzzleloader
IIIThe Shot5 chapters

“Every blood trail I ever followed started with a decision somebody made in about two seconds.”

  1. 19Know Your Distance, Know Your Limit
  2. 20Where to Hold, and the Shots to Pass Up
  3. 21Buck Fever: Don’t Look at the Antlers
  4. 22Stop Him Before You Shoot
  5. 23What the Animal Tells You at the Shot
IVFinding What You Hit8 chapters

“A deer you can’t find isn’t a miss. It’s a deer you haven’t found yet.”

  1. 24The First Thirty Minutes: Don’t Take a Step
  2. 25Reading Blood, Hair and Bone
  3. 26How Long to Wait, Hit by Hit
  4. 27When the Trail Goes Dry
  5. 28Tracking Dogs, Lights and Drones: What the Law Allows
  6. 29Your Deer Ran Onto the Neighbor’s Land
  7. 30The Next Morning, and Your Duty to Follow Up
  8. 31Crippled Birds and Downed Elk: Finding What Isn’t a Deer
VGetting It Out5 chapters

“Getting a deer down is the easy part. Getting it out is where men my age get hurt.”

  1. 32Field Dressing Without Cutting Yourself
  2. 33Dragging a Deer After Sixty
  3. 34Carts, Sleds, Ropes and Asking for Help
  4. 35Quartering in the Field: Where It’s Legal
  5. 36Into the Truck and Down the Road
VIHunting Past Sixty7 chapters

“The men who hunted into their eighties didn’t quit doing the hard things. They found an easier way to do them.”

  1. 37The Heart: Cold, Exertion and the Drag
  2. 38Hunting From the Ground
  3. 39If You Still Climb: Tree Stands Done Right
  4. 40Staying Warm and Dry
  5. 41Older Eyes, Older Ears, Stiff Hands: Sighting In and the Right Gun
  6. 42The Map on the Fridge, and Getting Lost
  7. 43The Other Ways Hunters Get Hurt
VIITaking a Kid or a Grandkid7 chapters

“Josie shot her first deer last fall. I was more nervous than she was.”

  1. 44Josie’s First Deer
  2. 45The First Hunt: Squirrels and Rabbits
  3. 46A Twenty-Two First, Then a Rifle That Fits
  4. 47The Safety Talk, and Saying It Again
  5. 48Cold Feet, Full Pockets and When to Go Home
  6. 49Their Tag Is Theirs
  7. 50Letting Them Pass, and Letting Them Cry
VIIIThe Meat6 chapters

“A deer that spoils in the garage is wasted, and the law has a word for that.”

  1. 51Cooling It When It’s Warm
  2. 52Hanging, Game Bags and the Meat Pole
  3. 53What You Have to Bring Out
  4. 54Getting Your Own Meat Back From the Shop
  5. 55CWD Testing, and Deciding Whether to Eat It
  6. 56Carol’s Kitchen: The Neck, the Shanks, and Giving It Away the Legal Way
IXRoy’s Field Guides, Season by Season9 chapters

“I checked duck hunters at the boat ramp at dawn, turkey hunters in May and coyote callers at midnight. The law had something to say to every one of them.”

  1. 57Doves: The September Opener
  2. 58Elk
  3. 59Mule Deer and Pronghorn: The Western Trip
  4. 60Pheasants and Grouse
  5. 61Ducks and Geese
  6. 62Coyotes, Foxes and Bobcats
  7. 63Wild Hogs
  8. 64Turkey
  9. 65Bears
XThe Warden’s Side: What Gets Hunters Written Up12 chapters

“Most good men I wrote up never meant to break a law. They just didn’t know where the line was.”

  1. 66Reading the Regulations the Way a Warden Does
  2. 67Your License, Your Tag and Where You Really Live
  3. 68Hunting Another State, and the Carcass on the Drive Home
  4. 69Asking Permission, and Keeping It
  5. 70Blaze Orange: How Much, Where and When
  6. 71Roads, Trucks and Loaded Guns
  7. 72Lights at Night
  8. 73The Pumpkin Pile: Bait, Salt, Feeders and Winter Feeding
  9. 74Food Plots, Standing Crops and the Neighbor’s Corn
  10. 75Scents, Calls, Decoys, Cameras and Drones
  11. 76Tag It Before You Move It
  12. 77Party Hunting, Check-In and the Deer in Somebody Else’s Freezer
XIWhen the Warden Walks Up6 chapters

“Most stops take five minutes. A few take an hour. The fella decides which, not me.”

  1. 78What He Looks at First, and the Questions He Asks
  2. 79What a Warden Can and Can’t Do
  3. 80A Stop After Dark
  4. 81Excuses That Never Worked
  5. 82Calling the Warden on Yourself
  6. 83Turning In Somebody Else
XIIThe End of the Season4 chapters

“The last weekend always comes faster than the first one did.”

  1. 84Thanksgiving Week
  2. 85After the Season: Guns, Sheds and the Tags in the Drawer
  3. 86Twelve Old Men: What They Taught Me
  4. 87Hunt Like the Warden’s Watching: What Thirty-One Years Taught Me

Field guides 9

One for each kind of game, in the order the seasons come. Every guide runs the same way: a story, the season at a glance, the tickets wardens write most, the old-timer trick, the shot, the meat, and one thing to do.

  • Doves: the September opener
  • Elk
  • Mule deer and pronghorn: the western trip
  • Pheasants and grouse
  • Ducks and geese
  • Coyotes, foxes and bobcats
  • Wild hogs
  • Turkey
  • Bears

…and whitetails get Parts I through V to themselves.

Printable pages 23

Made to print clearly in black and white on a home printer. Print as many copies as you like for your own truck, stand and fridge door.

  • The Pocket Card: Blood, Waiting Times and the Fence Rule
  • Signs a Big Buck Is Close
  • The Rut Calendar
  • Roy’s Hunting Calendar, Season by Season
  • The All-Day Sit Bucket List
  • Opening Morning, Hour by Hour
  • The Map on the Fridge
  • Pre-Season Checklist
  • Opening Morning Checklist
  • My State’s Rules (two pages)
  • Landowner Permission Card
  • When the Warden Walks Up
  • Carcass Transport Checklist
  • Tree Stand Check
  • The Envelope
  • A Young Hunter’s First Season
  • Truck Kit and Day Pack
  • Cooling the Meat
  • Turkey Season Check
  • Waterfowl Check
  • Bear Country Checklist
  • Season Log
  • Warning Signs: Heart, Cold and Carbon Monoxide

The Short Version

Every chapter ends with a box that sums it up in a few big-print lines. Read the chapter once, and the box jogs your memory the night before.

Where the advice comes from

A sources section lists, chapter by chapter, where the legal, safety and medical advice comes from: state wildlife agencies, hunter education courses, and medical and safety organizations.

A full index

Look up blaze orange, blood trails or tree stands and go straight to the page.

Look inside

Big print, plain pages, nothing fancy.

The body text is 16-point, the size used for large-print books, on full letter-size pages. These are five real pages from the book. Tap one to see it full size.

The first page of Chapter 1, The Same Ground, Every Year, set in large print.
Every chapter opens like thisChapter 1, The Same Ground, Every Year
The Short Version box at the end of Chapter 1, listing the chapter's main points.
The Short VersionThe whole chapter in a few lines
Printable Pocket Card with tick boxes for what the blood says, how long to wait, what the hair says, and the fence rule.
The Pocket CardBlood, waiting times and the fence rule
Printable page The Map on the Fridge, with lines for where you're parking and when you'll be home, and a box to draw the way in.
The Map on the FridgeCarol’s rule, before every hunt
Printable page When the Warden Walks Up, with checklists for being ready, the stop itself, after dark, and if you think he's wrong.
When the Warden Walks UpKeep it with your license

Swipe for more pages →

Who it’s for

Anybody who’s hunted a long time and wants to keep at it: deer hunters after a bigger buck, hunters past sixty, grandparents taking a kid out for the first time, and anybody who learned the rules thirty years ago and hasn’t read the regulations booklet since.

Roy, a grey-haired man with a moustache, in a brown vest over a grey shirt, arms crossed.Roy

Who’s behind the book

Meet Roy

My name is Roy Garrity. I was a game warden in Montana for thirty-one years, most of them in the Judith Basin and the Missouri Breaks. I grew up on a ranch outside Lewistown, and I drove a green state pickup with a seal on the door until the day I retired.

These days Carol and I have been married forty-four years, there’s a black Lab named Sadie asleep by the wood stove, and our grandkids, Josie and Tate, have started coming out with me. I still hunt elk alone every October, with a can of bear spray on my belt and a map on the refrigerator that Carol won’t let me leave without.

“I’ll tell you the truth, even when it isn’t what you’d like to hear. When a question belongs to your doctor, a lawyer or your own state’s wildlife agency instead of a retired game warden, I’ll send you to them every time.”— Roy
Watch Roy on YouTube
Cover of Hunt Like the Warden’s Watching.

Get the book

Get your copy

$39one time, US dollars

  • 751 pages in large 16-point print
  • 87 chapters in 12 parts, each ending with The Short Version
  • 9 field guides, from the September dove opener to spring bear
  • 23 printable pages for the truck, the stand and the fridge door
  • A full index and a list of sources, chapter by chapter
  • PDF: reads on a tablet, computer or phone, and prints at home
Get the Field Book · $39

Your download link arrives by email the moment you pay. Secure checkout through Gumroad, by card or PayPal.

7-day refund. Not for you? Email handmedownpress@gmail.com within 7 days of your purchase and you’ll get a full refund.

Questions

Before you buy

Is this a printed book?
Not yet. You download it right after you buy, as a PDF. Read it on a tablet, computer or phone, or print the pages you want.
Is the print really large?
Yes. The body text is 16-point, the size used for large-print books, on full letter-size pages, with big headings and clear checklists.
I don’t hunt in Montana. Will it help me?
Yes. The stories happened in Montana, but the lessons travel. The law doesn’t, so for every rule the book tells you what it usually is, how states differ, and how to find out exactly what it is where you hunt. Two printable pages are there for your own state’s rules.
Is it only about deer?
Deer come first. Part IX has field guides for doves, elk, mule deer and pronghorn, pheasants and grouse, ducks and geese, predators, wild hogs, turkey and bear. The parts on the shot, tracking, the meat and the law hold for anything you hunt.
Can I print the checklists?
Yes. The printable pages are made for a home printer in black and white. Print as many copies as you like for your own truck and household.
How do I get it after I pay?
Gumroad emails you a download link the moment you pay. Keep that email and you can download the book again any time.
Is it a subscription?
No. It’s a one-time purchase, with nothing to renew.
Is this legal advice?
No. Roy was a game warden, not a lawyer, and he worked in one state. The book tells you what to look for and where to find it. Your state’s current regulations tell you the law, and when you can’t find the answer, call your state wildlife agency.
Is the hunting-past-sixty part medical advice?
No. Part VI follows the medical and safety organizations listed at the back, but your doctor knows you. Talk to your doctor before the season, and take the book along if it helps.
Can I share it with my hunting partner?
Please don’t pass the file around. Print any page you like for your own use, and if your partner would like a copy, send him to this page.

Hunt like the warden’s already watching.

Everything Roy learned in thirty-one years at the tailgate, in print big enough to read in deer camp.

Get the Field Book · $39

Instant download · PDF · 751 pages · large 16-point print