LEWISTON – Wayne Hood was home from a hunting trip when the knock came at his door.

It was Game Warden Jeremy Judd. He was looking for illegal deer meat. He asked to peek in Hood’s freezer.

Instead of deer, the warden found moose meat.

Hood was told he needed to label the shrink-wrapped packages with the registration number issued by the state to the hunter who bagged the moose, Hood said in an interview.

After the warden left, Hood complied. He called the friend who had given him the gift. He used a black marker to scrawl the information on the dozens of packages of frozen meat.

Then Judd returned four hours later. He cited Hood for his earlier oversight even though all of the packages had by then been marked, Hood said.

He believes he shouldn’t be punished for having complied with the law. The class E misdemeanor could mean fines up to $1,000 or as much as six months in jail. Hood said he plans to fight the charge in Androscoggin County Superior Court. He wants a jury to hear his story.

It’s not that he disputes the law. He admits he neglected to identify the meat. Had he been cited when Judd discovered the unlabeled packages, Hood said he would have resignedly paid the fine.

That’s not what happened, he said. Judd returned after Hood had done what the warden had recommended. Then he was cited.

“This doesn’t make any sense to me,” Hood said. “This is just a waste of taxpayers’ money.”

According to state law, meat from deer, moose, bear and wild turkey must be labeled with the year it was shot, in addition to the name of the hunter who registered it with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. And that must happen before the meat changes hands.

The law applies not only to game killed in Maine, but to all gift game meat, said Col. Thomas Santaguida, chief warden at the Maine Warden Service, who discussed the case in Judd’s place.

As deer and moose hunting seasons approach, many Mainers will be stuffing their freezers with game meat shot by family, friends and neighbors.

Many of those packages won’t be labeled.

“Wardens encounter a lot of violations of this statute,” Santaguida said. Not all violators are issued summonses, he said. “Wardens are given discretion on how to deal with these things.”

The law is an important tool in tracking Maine’s wildlife, Santaguida said. The idea is to ensure that all game is legally killed. That’s the point of enforcing the gift law.

“If people are unknowingly breaking the law, our goal is to get them into compliance,” he said.

Hood is scheduled to appear in court Tuesday for a pretrial hearing.