Hey,
Sorry that happened to you.Of course it's at the officer's discretion whether to ticket or give a warning.
I have a hunch that they are under pressure to write tickets as a way of increasing revenue,if not an actual "quota",
they may get better performance evaluations if they write more tickets.If they need more money for the good things they do(especially stocking and wildlife management) I wish they would just raise the price of fishing licenses a little.
I think $20 is cheap. considering the many hours of enjoyment I get from fishing.
By the way,I believe you can print off as many copies of your license as you want from FW.KY.GOV website by choosing the link that says lost license and filling in your info.Doesn't matter if you bought it online or not.
Kurt