In response to the article, “Maine wardens out of touch, hunters say” (BDN, Feb. 24), is it really the hunters who have the problem or is it George Smith?

I get the same feeling that Smith would like to run the Fish and Wildlife Department. Every time I read the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine’s news, he is finding fault with the department and giving his ideas and opinions about how it should be run. Some of those ideas aren’t too bright.

Smith says “bad hunter-warden relations hurt the sport.” I live in Freeman Township where I have hunted for 49 years. I have always found the wardens of his area to be very helpful and friendly. A prime example of the sportsman-warden relationship in this area is that the same warden who “pinched” me for short trout also stopped to help me pile wood while I was woking on private land. When he pinched me, I was breaking the law. He was doing the job we pay them to do. It didn’t make him an enemy.

I was stopped beside the road recently with a minor automobile problem and it was a warden who stopped to offer his help. I would call that being neighborly.

I don’t think the wardens are “failing,” as Smith says. Wardens have always shown me respect and they will always have my cooperation and respect, and that’s the way it should be. Lew Badershall Freeman Township