[Joe Wicked]

AMF,
I am not LE, nor have I ever been in LE, but I do have friends, and I do have relatives who are. What I have learned is the majority of the time that the officers will keep digging is because experience has taught them that seeing XXXXXXX they commonly find YYYYYYYY. This is not 100%, but my uncle (Sheriffs Deputy in Georgia) has personally arrested several wanted felons from just a random stop. Most transportation drug busts happen from this as well. His department is required to have a set number of "Contacts" per shift. This does not mean tickets, it means stops. It is up to the officer to issue the citation. I would be willing to bet that the truth of the matter on the stop was that they picked your boat at a distance as a random stop, and that their procedure was to inspect everything regardless of what was found initially. I don't mean this to sound like I am bashing because I am not. Just what my personal experiences and acquaintances have lead me to believe