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

by Terry Grosz

  “Bob,” I said, “duck season doesn’t even start until almost two months from now.”

  “I know,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes, “but you are dealing with the Gold Dust Twins here, and right now we are burning daylight.”

  Brother. Off we went to patrol the areas nearest Delevan National Wildlife Refuge, the only area in my district that had lots of ducks that early in the season.

  As the sun began to set in the west, Bob and I had managed only to pinch a ditch tender for shooting American coots with a pellet gun and letting them lie where they fell. They were a form of waterfowl, but certainly not the big duck case Bob had ordered. Turning east just north of Gunner’s Field, John Chenny’s duck club, I headed toward a no-name duck club located along the 2047 Canal that was owned by a drywall contractor from San Francisco. I had been able to pinch members of that club for a myriad of wildlife violations in the past and figured it was as good a place to look for violations as any. I wasn’t disappointed.

  Driving by the clubhouse, Bob and I smelled burning feathers! There was one car parked at the clubhouse, which wasn’t unusual even for this time of the year. Members would come up for a weekend of drinking and just general messing around, hunting season or not. Bob and I spotted the source of burning feathers, two smoking fifty-gallon barrels out behind the duck club, but kept driving down the levee so as not to alert the offending parties. Waiting until dark, we drove quietly back along the levee until we were about one hundred yards south of the clubhouse, parked the rig, and walked the rest of the way on foot.

  The duck club appeared to be abandoned (there were no lights on inside), but the vehicle we had seen earlier was still there, and its motor was still warm to the touch. Thinking the lads might have gone to the bar in town in another vehicle, Bob and I began our search of the area, starting with the two fifty-gallon barrels. Inside the barrels were zillions of mallard and pintail feathers, including lots of pin feathers. Since this was September, most ducks would still be going through a moult and have pin feathers! That meant these feathers came from ducks recently taken, before the legal hunting season. A check of the weed field west of the clubhouse produced thirty-eight sets of guts recently removed from waterfowl of some sort. Further checking revealed fresh blood spots on the concrete step and porch leading into the back of the duck club proper. The front door was locked and no one responded to our knocking, so Bob and I just sat there with our evidence, quietly waiting for the culprits to return. Our wait ended just before midnight. Winding down the dirt road to the clubhouse came a set of headlights, accompanied by off-key singing that could be heard almost one hundred yards away. The vehicle slid to a stop next to the other parked vehicle, almost hitting it. Four noisy lads disembarked, one sprawling out flat on the ground to the cheers of the other three.

  “Screw you guys,” a voice said as the fallen man got himself up and staggered after his pals. “How about a duck dinner, uh, breakfast?” he roared after his comrades.

  The lad opening the door shouted, “You got it,” and headed for the kitchen. Bob and I raced to the nearest window and peeked in. Putting a half-empty bottle of whiskey down on the table, the lad went to the old refrigerator in the kitchen, removed a tray of freshly killed and cleaned duck bodies, and set it on the table. Bob and I just looked at each other and grinned. We were hot on the trail of another good case. Knocking on the front door, still able to see the tray of duck bodies through the glass in the door, I announced my presence to the lad who responded to the knocking.

  He knew me and said, “Come on in, Terry.” Then, realizing the ducks were in plain view, he added, “Oh, just a minute,” and tried to throw a coat over the offending tray.

  I said as I pushed my way in with Bob hot on my hind end, “Ralph, we need to look at your ducks, if you don’t mind.”

  What could he say, and the deed was done. It seemed the lads hadn’t been able to wait for the season to start and had shot the ducks the day before at a rice field where hundreds of the ducks had been feeding. Forty-four ducks later (we hadn’t found all the sets of guts) Bob and I started writing the lads tickets for illegal possession of waterfowl during the closed season. We seized the ducks and their shotguns, advising the now fairly sober lads that they would be expected to appear in the Williams court two weeks hence and settle up with the judge or post bond ($500 each). If they decided to post bond, they could pick up their shotguns at my house once the court notified me it was OK to release them.

  I told the lads, “The drunk-driving charges won’t be filed, nor will charges for having an open container in a motor vehicle, if these wildlife charges are settled.”

  There were quiet murmurs thanking me, and with that Bob and I went gleefully out the door. Damn, we had done it again. We were really beginning to think we were the Gold Dust Twins.

  We headed home after that. I took care of the evidence, and Bob headed for his home with a hearty, “See you tomorrow, same time.”

  I nodded and still could not believe our luck. We had written another $2,000 in tickets, over $8,000 total for several days’ work. Damn, this was getting unreal.

  * * *

  The next evening I met Bob in my driveway as he arrived. “Let’s go,” I said anxiously as we loaded his gear into my rig for another adventure. It didn’t take much urging to get Bob into high gear either. “Where to this afternoon?” I asked.

  “How about a large over-limit of dove?” Bob said. He kept looking me right in the eye, hardly wanting to break our run-of-luck spell, and I said, “The best place I have is over by Terrill Sartain’s ranch, near where we made our deer case night before last.”

  Bob said, “Let’s go,” and we were off.

  Arriving at Terrill’s 66,000-acre deer ranch an hour later, we began to patrol the areas known to me for historical dove concentrations. We used the classic game-warden technique of driving through an area, looking and occasionally stopping to listen for shots. It was quiet and appeared deserted. I didn’t expect to find many people out other than those from the ranch who would be hunting on private ground and behind locked gates. But many times people in that situation, thinking they are safe from prying eyes, will stray over the line of legality, and that was what I was banking on that day.

  For a while our continued patrol on that beautiful ranch produced not a soul or sound. Stopping to get a cool drink and relieve ourselves, Bob and I silently enjoyed our thoughts. Then boom, boom, boom went the sound of a shotgun to the south of us. It was almost dark, so we quickly got back into the patrol truck and headed south. There were several roads leading in the general direction of the shooting, so I took the first one I came to, but it panned out as the wrong road. Retracing our route, I was starting to turn onto another choice when I smelled dust in the air.

  “Bob,” I said, “I think our suspect rig has gone out behind us on the main road.”

  Without waiting for a reply, I spun the patrol truck back onto the main dirt road leading off the ranch and sped in that direction. Soon I began to overtake a dust trail and moments later saw a pickup truck stop about one hundred yards in front of us. A shotgun came out the passenger side of the vehicle, and another boom followed. The door opened, and a fellow ran to the edge of the road, picked up a bird, and ran back to the pickup. As the lad started to get into the truck, he looked back and saw our patrol truck. He froze, and in short order we had pulled up behind them.

  Well, well. Wally Oppum and Wes Dollar, two men of whom I had heard nothing good since I had arrived in the valley. Wes was a mortician from the Chico area, Wally was a farmhand for Terrill Sartain, and both had reputations as killing sons of bitches when it came to wildlife. Bob approached the pickup from the passenger side and I from the driver’s side. In the bed of the pickup were numerous doves, and it was easy to see, even in the fading light, that we had a huge over-limit. Bob and I exchanged glances. We had done it again: called our shots and were right on! Even in the 100 degree heat I felt a sliver of cold slide down my back
. Continuing with the business at hand, we got Wes and Wally out where we could see them and went through the usual game-warden drill checking licenses, checking plugs on their shotguns, and counting out the doves. The limit in those days was fifteen per day, and they had 118 doves in the back of their pickup. Neither of the lads had much love for me, so Bob and I quickly issued them citations for possessing over-limits of dove, seized the birds, and told them they could appear or post bond. Either way they were looking at a $500 bill each for their little error in counting.

  They went their way, and Bob and I stood for several long moments in the dark before he said, “This is getting scary.” Now, for Bob to say that meant it was getting scary. I don’t think I had ever seen Bob scared of anything, but he was starting to show some nerves at this point in the game. “There is no way, night after night, we can make a call and have it happen,” he said.

  Thinking the same way, I shrugged and somewhat lamely offered up, “The Gold Dust Twins.”

  “Bullshit,” said Bob. “You and I both know we’re in the Twilight Zone on this one!”

  Dodging the discussion, I said, “Let’s go home,” and with that Bob and I headed home, two grown men with their tails neatly tucked between their legs. Another $1,000 in tickets spun through my head as we journeyed home. God must really love little children, fools, and game wardens, I thought.

  * * *

  Bob arrived at my place about noon the next day, so I fixed him lunch. He told me he had been talking to the captain, and Jim just couldn’t believe our phenomenal luck. In fact, Jim had apparently contacted Sacramento and told the “head shed” of his two tigers tearing up the Sacramento Valley. I just looked at Bob, and he looked at me. “Nice tuna sandwich,” he said.

  That afternoon found us up at Lake Ladoga checking fishermen. Neither of us had suggested a target case for that day. It seemed as if we hadn’t thought of it. Heading through Stonyford and down the Leesville-to-Ladoga road, we passed through several old, deserted ranches. We were both lost in thought and just enjoying the hot air flowing through our open windows.

  “You have tule elk in your district, don’t you?” Bob asked.

  “Yes, I do,” I said. “Not very many, about sixty head I think, but yes.”

  “Damn, it would be nice to make an elk case, wouldn’t it?” Bob said offhandedly.

  We quickly looked at each other but said nothing. We didn’t have to—our eyes said it all.

  We hadn’t gone more than a mile or so farther down the road when my Fish and Game radio came to life with, “234, Colusa County.”

  Picking up the mike, I said, “This is 234; go ahead, Colusa.”

  “234, is there any violation if one kills an elephant in Colusa County?” continued the familiar dispatcher’s voice.

  Laughing, I said, “Colusa County, this is 234; there is no season or bag limit on elephant. They can take as many as they want.”

  Bob and I started really laughing but were brought up short by the continuing radio transmission: “234, correction, elk, not elephant.”

  I looked at Bob, and he just stared back at me. “Colusa,” I continued, not laughing now, “elk are a totally protected species in California; there is no season or bag limit.”

  “234, what is your location?” continued the dispatcher.

  “One mile from the California Division of Forestry station near Leesville,” I responded.

  “234, we just got a report that an individual just now killed a tule elk near Cache Creek. Can you respond?”

  “We’re on our way,” I responded. “ETA twenty minutes.”

  I put the patrol truck into the “fly” mode, and off Bob and I went, roaring down dirt roads at speeds faster than a sane man would drive. There had never been a case in Colusa County of anyone illegally killing a tule elk. This would be a first, and I wanted in on the action. It dawned on me as I hurled down the Leesville Valley dirt roads that Bob was looking at me in a very funny way.

  “I just mentioned it,” he said. “I didn’t even think about it, just mentioned it offhandedly about the elk case and all.” His voice trailed off, and I think our thoughts were racing around in our heads just as fast as we were moving across that valley to get to the scene of the kill. This game we were playing was becoming not of this world and out of hand!

  Arriving at the Cache Creek kill scene, Bob and I were greeted with a dead seven-point bull elk, poached in broad daylight right along State Highway 20. It seemed a tourist had been filming the feeding elk herd from the highway when a lad had come along, shot the herd bull with his brand-new .444 lever-action Marlin, and then commenced to gut his kill. All this had been captured on film, and all Bob and I had to do was go over to the shooter, conduct a short interview, issue him a citation, finish gutting the elk, and load the carcass. Heading for Colusa and a locker plant, Bob and I drove in silence for a long while. Both of us were hot, sweaty, covered with elk blood, and deeply lost in our thoughts, among which was a recently issued $1,000 citation, the very first for killing a tule elk in Colusa County.

  Bob finally said, “I think I have the hang of how Jim wants me to work in the district. Maybe we don’t need to work together anymore for a while.”

  I said, “You really do have it together, and there is not much more I can do to fill you in on how the district is run, so maybe you’re right.”

  More silence followed, and then Bob said, “The Gold Dust Twins. There really is something to be said for a German tank driver and a Digger Indian game-warden team.”

  I said, “Bob, I know neither of us is superstitious, but let’s just let this one lie, OK?”

  After another pause Bob said, “Right; we aren’t superstitious.” After that we didn’t work together often on major projects, but when we did Bob and I always knocked the bad guys dead. This unusual chemistry even carried over to hunting together, or anything else we did. The two of us, the German and the Indian, were always extremely successful when running side by side. Damn, I just remembered that he never did pay up on those hamburger bets. Damn his scrawny hide.

  I wonder what it would be like to make a case involving...

  Chapter Thirteen

  A Rocket in the Car

  One hot July day in 1968 found Warden Bob Hawks and me checking warm-water game-fish fishermen along the Butte Creek area of Colusa County. This area was frequented by African Americans for the catfish and carp fishing, which was some of the best in the state. Occasionally a salmon or two would go through this area, and the level of fishing excitement would go even higher when one had a thirty-five-pound king salmon flopping at one’s feet. Because of the excellent fishing, over-limits and littering became a problem, and after numerous complaints from adjacent landowners and other fishermen, Bob and I decided to pay a little visit to the area to see if the long arm of the law could help in cleaning the area up.

  Our method of operation was simple. We would wait until dark, walk along the east side of Butte Creek, which was all private and behind locked gates, and watch the fishing activity on the opposite side through our binoculars. When we detected a violation, we would sneak back across the creek under cover of darkness on one of the few private bridges, zap the offending souls, and issue citations for the error of their ways. It made for an ideal law enforcement situation but was hell on wheels for the bad guys. They never did figure out how the game wardens always had the goods on them and were able to make the cases they did.

  One evening Bob and I slipped over to Butte Creek after noticing it was loaded on the west side with fishermen. Moving along on foot on the east side of the creek as we always did, we saw many fishing camps but none that elicited our enforcement interest. Then, after walking about a mile, we spotted a likely-looking camp. A few minutes’ observation with the binoculars confirmed numerous violations. The fishing camp under observation contained seven automobiles and twenty-one fishermen. There were lanterns strung along their side of the creek that gave the camp a Christmas-like atmosphere. Ice chest
s, fish stringers, Coleman stoves, and fishing equipment abounded. When we counted the number of fishermen and the number of fishing poles, it became clear that we had numerous violations of state law on that issue alone (California allowed only one pole per person in those days).

  Bob and I sat there in the dark with our binoculars, watching the lads fish and duly noting those who used more than one fishing pole in our notebooks for the ticket-writing that was to follow. Then out of the dark came a huge black woman, whom we hadn’t noticed before, clad only in her white underpants. In and of itself, this was strange, to say the least. But a quick count of the men in camp, all twenty-one of them, made it even more unusual. This woman was a rather large specimen, three hundred-plus pounds, I would venture. She was prancing around the men like an unbroken spring colt and was rather loud of voice, as I recall. It quickly became plain that she had been brought along to provide pleasure to all the men, and she wasn’t wasting much time.

  Bob and I sat there and chuckled as we watched events unfold. The center for the main event was a ’58 Chevy station wagon, parked in such a manner that its rear end was pointed toward the creek—and, of course, Bob’s and my position about thirty yards away. The tailgate was down, and a mattress had been placed in the back of the car. This lady was servicing all the men, one at a time. She would finish with one chap and holler out, “All right, Shorty, it’s your turn.” With that hard-to-turn-down invitation, in would go another lad, and the process would start all over again.

  Bob and I decided we would have some fun at these folks’ expense. I left Bob at the streamside, went back to my patrol car, and picked up several scram depredation rockets. These were nothing more than eight-to-ten-inch-long rockets, like the ones you see in Fourth of July fireworks, that we used for waterfowl-depredation herding work in the valley to keep the ducks, geese, and coots out of the rice. To launch the rocket you used a handheld launcher, hooked the rocket to a launch rod fastened to the middle of the flash pan, lit it, aimed it, and let it go. These little rockets were faster than greased lightning and traveled about a thousand feet after ignition, blowing up with one hell of a bang. Not only were they an excellent depredation device but they could possibly be used to scare the hell out of people fishing at night along Butte Creek— and that theory was about to be tested.