Wildlife Wars: The Life and Times of a Fish and Game Warden

by Terry Grosz

  I looked back at Ken, and he had seen the same concern exhibited by the crew. I could see that Ken was going to try to catch the next small swell and run me right up to the other vessel, so I made ready. My preparations consisted of a short prayer and a gathering of all my strength to make the leap. The boats closed, and as the bow of the Rainbow went up and the side of the Garibaldi dropped into the wave trough, I jumped. Over the Garibaldi’s rail I went to the deck beyond, landing off balance on my boot heels. I hit so hard I started sliding down the pitching, wet deck of the Garibaldi toward the wheelhouse. Picking up speed on my heels as the Garibaldi dove into the wave trough, I was unable to get the full soles of my boots down on the deck to break my slide. The combination of the rain-soaked deck, steeply pitching boat, nothing but boot heels for traction, and a 320-pound seasick weight on top meant one hell of a cannonball in the making.

  Down the deck I slid, throwing my arms around, trying to regain my balance and scattering crew members every which way but loose until I came to the hatch railing amidships. Hitting the railing at the speed I was going did nothing to slow me down. Instead it flipped me headfirst through the open hatch and over flat on my back into about a ton of live Dungeness crabs. Crunch went the crabs, and my heavy body came to a violent rest. I lay there for a moment getting my bearings and my wind back. Then through my foggy mind came the realization that those crabs not underneath me were getting revenge for the crabs who couldn’t help themselves to a piece of my carcass. I had dozens of crabs grabbing me by the ears, arms, hind end, cheeks, lips, legs, and anywhere else they could attach their pinchers, showing their displeasure at my dropping in unannounced. I was glad I had not landed face first in these grabbing sons of bitches! Up out of the crab bin I came with a roar. I must have had fifty crabs hanging on to me, and goddamn, did it ever hurt! I tried to remove them as quickly as I could, but the damn things were not to be denied. They just hung on and let me know I didn’t belong in their crab box. Realizing I couldn’t get them loose by gently prying their pinchers apart, I began breaking off their legs instead.

  Looking up, I saw the Italian crew members looking down at the game warden who had disappeared in a flash into the hold of their ship. When they saw that I was breaking off the crab legs to get them off my soft parts, they went berserk. Breaking off the crab pinchers would ruin their chances of selling them. No one wants to buy a crab without the pinchers attached, and the Italians speedily let me know that they wanted me to stop what I was doing, right now. I thought, Tell it to someone who doesn’t have a jillion of these little bastards hanging all over him, as I continued ripping off those who remained to ruin my day. Then my seasickness hit me again, and I began to broadcast-puke into the boxes holding the crabs. The Italian crew went ballistic now, as did the crabs on the receiving end of my lunch donation. God, what a hell of a wreck that moment was. A puking game warden, pitching vessel, diesel fumes, rotting smells, crabs hung all over me like a Neptune Christmas tree, and I falling into the crab boxes with my hands and arms as I tried to remain standing every time the ship rolled into the next wave. Of course, I was rewarded with more crab ornaments on my arms and hands each time they went into the boxes to steady me.

  After about three minutes of this mess, I was able to grab a bulkhead and stand upright. Jesus, was I a mess. Welts everywhere, and I do mean everywhere. Sore all over inside due to my seasickness, with more on the way and a pitching vessel I would have one hell of a time getting off of without breaking my damn neck. Damn, there sure were a lot of places I would rather have been at the moment!

  Then I saw it. In a corner of the hold were four big crab boxes full of female crabs (prohibited) and short crabs (less than the required width).There were at least several hundred pounds of these prohibited critters, way over the 2 percent error rate the Fish and Game department allowed any commercial fishing vessel! I moved my welted body over to the suspect boxes and confirmed my observation. In addition, I discovered two more boxes with more of the same hidden under a tarp. Ken’s intuition about these lads had been right on the money.

  Forgetting my sickness and welts, I scurried topside and with hand signals let Ken know we had a keeper. Ken pulled alongside, and I hollered the information about the illegal crab cache. He just grinned and gave me the high five. I think I would have happily settled for some Pepto-Bismol. Meeting with the skipper of the boat, I told him what I had discovered and asked him how the illegal crabs had gotten there. He just shrugged his shoulders in resignation and continued to look at me like a trapped rat. I then told him we were seizing his catch and he would have to follow us back to the docks in Eureka. I also told him that if he or any of his crew tried to destroy the evidence, that act would lead to jail for all his lads as well as additional charges. He had been through it before and understood that after going to Eureka we could offload his catch, and he could then settle up with the state for his greed. Also, at the docks Ken and I could weigh and photograph the illegal catch and then return it to Humboldt Bay, thereby allowing the crabs to live. As a formality, I explained the law about the females and short crabs so we wouldn’t have any trouble in court later on, and he acknowledged the information with a nod. Before I left, I turned and again reminded him about the consequences of the destruction of evidence, including the potential loss of his boat. The look in his eyes told me we would not have a problem in that arena if losing his boat was the order of the day. Flagging Ken alongside, I jumped back to the Rainbow with less trouble than I had figured and then walked around the deck and reported my find to Ken. He was as elated as I was.

  Then he looked at my face and arms and said, “What the hell happened to you?”

  Ignoring him, I said to God, if He was listening that day, “Let me live long enough to eat every Dungeness crab that lives on this planet!”

  Ken, knowing my penchant for seasickness, just grinned and mumbled, “Please Lord, let it be on someone else’s ship.” Damn him. He had the ability to make me laugh even if I felt like dying, and I did.

  Ken slid the Rainbow in behind the Garibaldi for our trip to the harbor in Eureka. By trailing astern of the suspected boat, if they had a change of heart and tried to throw the evidence crabs over the side we would be in an excellent position to observe and photograph every move they made.

  Standing back by Ken at the wheel, I was glad we were running for home. He kept the Rainbow out of the wake and diesel fumes of the Garibaldi, and as long as we were moving I remained less seasick. I was pleased with my effort for the day and began to puff up a bit, as we Germans are wont to do after good efforts. Then I was brought back to earth by a CB transmission from the Garibaldi to an Italian friend of the skipper back at the docks in Eureka. I heard the skipper say, “Hey, Lauri, do you have your ears on?” There was a pause, and the message was repeated. Ken and I were both all ears. Knowing the fishermen did not know we had a CB on board, we thought they might give out some good information on the air that we could put to good enforcement use later on.

  “This is Lauri, Tony, what’s up?”

  “Hey, Lauri,” the Garibaldi skipper responded, “are you going home the same way tonight?”

  There was a moment of silence, as if Lauri were trying to figure out what that request meant, and then she responded, “Yeah.”

  The skipper continued, “You know, Lauri, the way home by the zoo?”

  Again a pause from Lauri and then a somewhat questioning answer: “Yeah, Tony, are you all right?”

  There was a measured pause and then the skipper continued, “Yeah, what I need you to do is stop by the zoo and get me a gorilla!”

  There was a long pause. Ken and I gave each other questioning looks. Lauri said, “Tony, are you sure you’re all right?”

  Tony responded, “Yeah, but I need a big, ugly gorilla. Fish and Game put a gorilla on my boat today that tore the hell out of everything from above the deck to all my crab boxes below, and if they can have one, I want one too!”

  Ken started laugh
ing and finally was laughing so hard that he had to let go of the wheel and double over with mirth. I didn’t think it was that funny. But obviously it was, because I could hear laughter on Lauri’s end of the CB as well. Gorilla! It was OK to be big enough to eat hay, and I had been called that before by the fishermen as I made my rounds, but a gorilla—brother. I had to admire the lad in the Garibaldi, though; he had a sense of humor. He would need it once he got hit with several tickets for gross take of a restricted species, I smiled to myself. I guess there was some compensation for him, though, because he would receive those tickets from Fish and Game’s only active-duty gorilla.

  Needless to say, after that incident the Fish and Game squad changed my nickname from Tiny to Migilla.

  Chapter Nine

  My Friend Tom

  In the early fall of 1967 I moved to Colusa County from Humboldt County and rented a home; it was more like a chicken coop than a house, but my bride and I made do. As a game warden, I was responsible for enforcement of the state Fish and Game laws in the northern half of Colusa County, a chunk of real estate approximately 1,100 square miles in size. My half of this county was capped on the west by high, rugged mountains, bordered by the Sacramento River on the east, and quilted on the valley floor by every form of cropland known to inhabit rich soils, especially rice, the staple grain of many nations. The high mountains were unique in their own right, but the magic of this district lay in the valley floor, which was the ancestral home of millions of migrating waterfowl.

  The main Fish and Game office was located in Sacramento, and hundreds of warden stations dotted the state on an as-needed basis. This was a good arrangement because the local officer could relate to his people and wildlife problems and not be bothered too often by the big wheels from the main office. Periodically, someone from the main office would call with a problem or assignment, but generally they left the field officers alone to do what we did best.

  One of the main-office duties was to check the deer-tag receipts sent in by all successful deer hunters, not only to ascertain the kill data but to check compliance with the tagging laws. Tags that were plainly in violation of the law, such as those used in the wrong hunting district or questionable regarding who really shot the deer were sent to the field warden in the county where the violation originated for investigation and adjudication.

  In those days, though not today because of the huge human population and reduced resources, California had a system of A and B tags for deer hunters. A hunter could kill two deer, but one had to be killed in the coastal area (A tag) and one had to be killed in the inland area (B tag). Once an animal was killed, it had to be labeled with the appropriate tag before it was transported, and the hunter had fifteen days to send the receipt portion of the tag indicating a kill and other information in to the Fish and Game headquarters. Most hunters were responsible about returning their tag receipts, and I rarely had a problem with this report system in my district.

  One day I received a packet of information in the mail from Sacramento that included several deer-tag receipts and questions about their validity. Looking back on that day, I remember that there was one A tag that had been attached to a deer taken in a B district. It wasn’t a big deal, really, but in those days the Fish and Game officials in Sacramento wanted us to issue citations to individuals who didn’t take the time to read the regulations before they tagged their deer. Following instructions, I called a Mr. Tom Okimoto, who lived in the Sacramento River Valley town of Yuba City and who unfortunately had used his A tag in the B district of Colusa County, and asked him to come over to my house when he got off work at Terhel Farms so we could square away this problem.

  Mr. Okimoto arrived shortly thereafter, concerned about why he had been called on the carpet by the local game warden. What a man I was about to have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet! He was a Japanese fellow about five-foot-eight who weighed about three hundred pounds. He had a quick smile, an easy laugh, and a look in his eyes that bespoke wisdom earned from many years of hard work, liberally salted with the marks of the prejudice that went with being Asian in a white European America. I asked Mr. Okimoto if he had recently killed a deer in Colusa County. His reply was priceless, for no other reason than the honesty and innocence with which it was presented to me. “Mr. Grosz,” he said, “I was running a bean harvester on the east side and jumped this buck up out of the beans, and since I saw him several days earlier, I had thrown my rifle in the harvester, and when he got up this time I shot him.”

  The words flowed like water in response to my question, regardless of the fact that he had confessed to another Fish and Game violation, namely, taking a game animal from a moving vehicle. I stood in amazement, looking at this man who was a real piece of Americana: honest, hardworking, more than likely poor as a church mouse, yet exuding the energy of a good human being taking in the world as it stood. Looking at this picture of a man as hardworking and honest as the day was long, I thought Sacramento could go to hell on this one. I wasn’t going to issue Mr. Okimoto a citation for an improperly tagged deer, much less for shooting one from a motor vehicle. For some strange reason, unknown to me at that time, I took an instant liking to this man. He was a work of art and a piece of history, and I wanted that in my life as well.

  I said, “Mr. Okimoto, you did violate the Fish and Game laws, but it is a minor violation.” As soon as I said, “minor violation,” I could see the concern clouding his face.

  “Am I going to jail?” came his concerned reply.

  “No, nothing like that,” I responded. “I propose you bring me your set of deer antlers and the other deer tag.” As I spoke, I could see his dark eyes hanging on every word I uttered. Continuing, I said, “If you do that, I will put the correct deer tag on your antlers, destroy the old tag, and not issue you a citation for the violation.” I could see in an instant by the look on his face that he considered my proposal to be fair. He would be out one deer tag, I told him, but he said he didn’t have the money to go into another part of the state to hunt anyway, so the two worlds called it even and sealed the deal with a firm handshake. Tom went home and came back an hour or so later with the antlers and unused portion of his deer tag, and the deal was squared with the state of California.

  That little bit of generosity, common sense, or God’s guiding hand (children, fools, and game wardens, remember) was to grant me a remarkable friend for as long as he lived. Tom combined a little bit of the old and a whole lot of the new and represented the very best in what he did, not in a manner for the whole world to see but in a manner of quiet excellence. He loved people and valued their friendship. He loved to fish—no, he lived for fishing and was happiest when a fifty-pound striper was on his fishing line or in his boat. But he really excelled at working with his plants and the land.

  God may have been a fisherman, but His charge Tom was a man of the soil. There wasn’t anything Tom couldn’t grow, and better than anyone else I chanced to meet throughout my years in the Sacramento Valley. After our deer-tag episode it wasn’t uncommon for me to come home and find a bucket of the world’s best peaches, plums, vegetables, or honey on my doorstep in the garage. For the longest time I couldn’t figure out where those wonderful items were coming from. It was all the more surprising for me, a game warden in a town that hated game wardens with a passion, to receive gifts of this quality and volume.

  One day while I was at the marina gassing up my patrol boat for a trip down the Sacramento River to check fishermen, Tom approached and asked, “Did you enjoy the last batch of peaches?”

  I said, “Yes; do you know who is bringing them to my house?” Tom got a little twinkle in his eye and told me they had come from his garden in Yuba City. From that moment on Tom was my special friend, and to this day my eyes still get misty when I remember that he is dead.

  As I grew to love and understand my new friend, he opened up to me, and what a revelation. During World War II Tom had been detained in an internment camp at Tule Lake, California, fo
r being an Asian American in the “right” place at the “wrong” time. America has inflicted no greater an injustice on its people than the stain of this action imposed on a people who had done nothing to warrant being treated as aliens and enemies. As an amateur historian, I can find no explanation to justify what happened to that segment of our American people.

  When the United States ran out of Anglo men for the war effort, the government began to recruit among the Japanese Americans in the internment camps. My friend Tom told me he volunteered just to get out of that camp, even though his parents strongly objected, and he fought for his country in Italy during that great war. After we had spent a lot of time together over the next few years, he opened up further and told me he had been severely injured charging several German machine guns on the Gustav Line after a friend of his had been hit and in the process earned several Silver Stars for bravery. Needless to say, Tom was screwed up physically after the war, especially his back, where, according to him, machine-gun bullets had done their work well.

  As our friendship grew, Tom became a regular visitor to our home. He would arrive with his trademark bucket of fruit or vegetables and ask for me. If I was home, he would come into the house to visit. If I was not there but due shortly, he would wait outside for me, even after being invited in. I guess his old Japanese politeness died hard. He would wait outside, many times in 100 degree heat, with a glass of iced tea and a smile on his face, knowing full well he would bring a smile to mine as soon as he had shared whatever information he had. Tom may have been old-country Japanese, but he had a love for America and her resources like I haven’t seen in many people in my fifty-plus years. He also had a mind like a bear trap for the details of serious illegal activity concerning the area’s wildlife. I haven’t seen the likes of his exactness of detail, I might add, since we parted at the “Great Divide” years ago. He was remarkable in that his intelligence would be punctuated with names, locations, and even the exact times that these illegal events were to unfold. I was forever amazed by the specificity of Tom’s data, whether the illegal activity were in Glenn, Butte, Colusa, or Yuba County, especially regarding the exact times of occurrence. After following up on Tom’s information on several occasions and always finding it correct, I listened intently whenever he chose to share his findings with me. Even today I can remember many events that followed Tom’s descriptions to the letter. For instance, Tom would tell me to be at a particular ranch or spot in the outback, and the fellows would kill the ducks at five-fifteen p.m. I would be on the spot, and the lads would blow the ducks up at, say, five-seventeen p.m.!