I was watching old North Woods Law reruns yesterday on TV. The Maine years. The episodes were full of "we're gunna git deez dem people and tickickem!"
You watch it today and it's all flowers and rainbows with minimal tickets and arrests. I think that game wardens realized they were getting boned by the show. I mean, they have a somewhat bad rep to begin with. NWL wasn't helping. Now they are Officer Friendly.
I'm also not sure what you mean by getting boned by the show. I'm sure the show embellishes alot...but "we're gunna git deez dem people and tickickem!" is the Game Warden's fault. I saw a lot of that in the early shows.....where the attitude was, please shoot that mechanical deer in the field so we can bag you! They wanted it to happen.
Here's what likely happened...Maine is a vacation destination that gets a boost in the local economy from sporting tourism. Consumers of the Maine Sporting Economy maybe started saying NFW, and licenses took a hit. I really don't know....from what I saw, I wouldn't want to go there.
Or....The local guides and camps complained and said, Thanks for showing our Warden Douchbaggery.....your basically killing our businesses, because of this no one wants to come here anymore. This likely got back to Lepage...who put the kibosh on whole thing.
Maybe the new Govenor let them back on, but they learned their lesson that being aholes generally isn't good when a decent portion of your local economy is tourism.
I personally know a guy who got a 300 dollar ticket for his grandson putting a live fish in a bucket of dead fish by mistake by a Maine GW. He was targeted because he was a Ma**h***, guaranteed. Little did they know he owned serious land up there. He said that ticket was the best thing that ever happened to him and his sons and grandsons. He sold his place in Maine, out of spite, he sold to an antihunter, who posted the whole place.
Now over a 300 dollar silly ticket, they lose his, sons, and grandsons license sales, over $600 a year times say 25 years, not including license increases. Plus what whatever monies they used for food, and supplies, going to lunch, etc to the local economy. Plus the land is posted and the new owner allows no one on, no hunting at all, where my friend allowed locals on and anyone that asked.
My friend used HALF the proceeds and bought a place in Kentucky, with more land, less taxes, and ten times more game than Maine had. They used to shoot maybe a deer a year between the 6 of them, if they saw anything at all.
Now in KY they have their choice of what too shoot, as they see tons of deer,turkeys and other game. They now pass deer up and are selective. Yet still put plenty of meat in the freezer. More than they ever did in Maine.