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

by Terry Grosz

  There were a lot of footprints where the tail end of the truck would have been had it still been parked there. This time I noticed that all the footprints in that area were sunk deeply into the soil as if they had been lifting a heavy load. In addition, all the footprints were not clear-cleated as they had been when they disembarked from the vehicle. The boot-sole cleats were obscured, probably full of rice-grass stems, leaves, and mud. Dropping to one knee, I ran my fingers over a thin stream of blood about one-eighth inch wide and a foot in length that crossed several of the deeper footprints. The fact that the blood had spewed over the footprints told me that a large animal had been loaded into the truck. It was obvious that a heavy part had been lifted, followed by the part leaking the blood last. Large and long was my estimate of the animal’s size. The blood was bright red, which told me that no paunch shooting had occurred. It had probably been a head or neck shot, and this was just the clean blood that would occur from a normal opening and evisceration of the body cavity. It had to be an animal of value or they wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of gutting and hauling it out. But what?

  There were no cattle in the area and very few deer. When I smelled the blood, it had a faint odor I did not recognize. There was no hair on the ground and no other evidence such as bloody rags or paper towels, which told me the poachers had cleaned their hands elsewhere. The blood was still wet and sticky, which told me it was recent, and it had yet to blacken with exposure to the air. Intermingled all around these signs were the footprints of four dogs. They were all large-footed, so my guess was that they were black-and-tans, blue ticks, or walkers, and the tips of their toenails were blunted, telling me these were kennel dogs. Such dogs were normally bred to hunt raccoons, lions, bears, or other large animals. Other than skunks and coons, we sure as hell had little to offer these boys in the form of a good chase of a worthy adversary, I thought. Boy, was I wrong!

  My tired eyes followed the footprints from where the pickup had been parked as they trekked northward toward the Colusa National Wildlife Refuge external boundary. The refuge, a zone closed to all hunting, had to be where they had come from. Now my mind was really racing. It took a lot of balls to hunt a totally closed area, and more than likely at night to avoid discovery. But for what? The refuge had few deer, and they would be difficult to get no matter how hard you tried. This refuge was only several thousand acres in size and had at one time been a rice farm. It still had vestiges of old rice dikes, interspersed with marsh development created by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to establish habitat favorable to the wintering waterfowl. Still drawing a blank, I called Shadow out of the back of the patrol truck, and the two of us headed off into another adventure.

  Backtracking the three sets of footprints, I could see that the dogs stayed uncommonly close to the size 12 footprint. Arriving at the refuge fence and boundary, I noticed that the tracks scarcely hesitated but went right over the fence and in as if they owned the place. Once inside, the dog tracks forged back and forth and from side to side of the size 12 but were never more than ten to fifteen yards away at any time. Boy, talk about trained dogs: this lad sure had them. The tracks walked down an old refuge road for about two hundred yards and then headed west across the refuge along a set of old rice dikes. Walking about one hundred yards into this area of marsh and rice dikes, it finally dawned on me what the quarry was: pigs! The refuge had a large wild hog population. The history was that during the Depression, a farmer was about to have his farm taken from him by the bank. In the heat of the moment, the farmer decided that the bank wasn’t going to get everything and released his hogs into the wild. Since that day the hogs had done well in the area along the creek bottoms and marginal farmlands. In fact, they had prospered so well in numbers and in size that they were now a problem on the refuge and surrounding farmlands because of their rooting and the resulting soil displacement. During a hog drive to reduce their numbers on the refuge in 1967, I had killed one that weighed about six hundred pounds with my .44 magnum pistol. The damn boar had charged me after I shot one of his sows, and it had taken five solid hits from that magnum shooting 240-grain expanding bullets to drop him—at my feet, I might add! That is the only time I’ve had mud and water tossed into my face by a charging animal. Standing in that marsh, knee deep in slop and with nowhere to run, with a crazed six-hundred-pound animal bearing down on me sure made me understand mortality.

  Continuing westward into the marsh about another fifty yards, I ran across muddy water and lots of hog tracks interspersed with dog and human tracks. It was apparent that the chase had started here! About forty yards farther to the west, I found where a single hog had made a stand, as evidenced by the surrounding dog tracks. There was snot, hog crap, and hair everywhere. From the size of the hog tracks, he had to be a big one. There was a spew of blood off to one side on the dike where the hog had made this last stand, with bone and muscle meeting modern humankind’s inventions in the form of a speeding bullet. Adjacent to the blood lay a gut pile, mute evidence of the loser of that clash, smeared with blood that smelled like the blood I had found earlier at the truck. I began following the drag trail made by the men as they removed the hog carcass from refuge lands. They did not go out the way they had come in but took another route. Pretty damn clever of size 12, I thought. That way he was reducing his chances of being discovered. I was beginning to think that my gut feeling indicating I was looking at a real poaching ace was correct (a sense that was certainly confirmed over the subsequent times I pursued this lad). The drag trail led to the refuge’s southern boundary fence, above where they had parked their vehicle. I could see that they had stood there for a while observing their pickup to make sure no one had discovered it or suspected their intentions. This wait was apparent by the number of footprints, knee impressions in the soil, and cigarette butts with tooth marks on them around where they had stood. They had also apparently re-drained the blood from the hog carcass because there was a huge splash of blood all over the rice grass, with a lot of blood clots at the center. Finally satisfied that all was clear, they had moved to the truck and made good their escape.

  Satisfied that I could do no more, I returned to my patrol truck and headed out to the highway en route to the headquarters of the Colusa National Wildlife Refuge. Driving in, I was met by Refuge Manager Ed Buria en route to pick up his government mail. I asked Ed if he had heard anything interesting on his refuge lately. He answered that all was quiet as far as he knew but, quickly realizing that my curiosity was not ordinary, asked for an explanation.

  I told Ed of the morning’s events, and he grunted. “We have a real good hog population, and I wouldn’t care if they killed them all except for the issue of the law. Those guys don’t belong out there, and I hope you catch every one of them.”

  Leaving Ed with instructions to keep an eye on the poachers’ little hidden parking lot and to be sure and let the Williams game warden or me know if anyone showed up, we parted company. My wife had departed for school (she is a schoolteacher, and a damn good one) but had left me a lumberjack’s breakfast (steak, eggs, spuds, homemade bread, and a slice of pie my size). She knew I was on the run, with a 107-day duck season and all, and always saw to it that I had fuel for the furnace.

  Throughout the rest of duck season and into the end of January, I ran across various bits of evidence that my size 12 hog poacher was in the area. I also noticed that the tire tracks changed every time I discovered he had been in the area, as did the soles of his shoes. One time the original tire tread and the knife mark across the sole I had seen the first time would be in evidence. The next time, both would be different, and then the next time both would trade back to the ones used the first time. The one screw-up was the nervous person on the end of the cigarettes. That never changed. It was always three guys, they always parked in the same little hidey-hole, cigarette butts were scattered everywhere, and they always seemed to only be after the hogs. As far as I could tell, in 1968 and early 1969 my friend trod in this arena of
interest at least eight times, as was evidenced by my discovery of gut piles on the refuge. I never found more than one gut pile at a time, and when I asked the Colusa County sheriff’s office over the radio to watch the area for me, the bad guys never would appear. Surprise, surprise. Both the Williams warden (since it was his district) and I kept a keen eye out for these lads, but no brass ring was in the offing.

  Summer came, and with it my madcap fishing season associated with the Sacramento Valley waterways. For a while I was too busy to worry about this hog killing going on in another warden’s district, but as the fishing slacked off I began to take runs by the area just for grins. During one of those runs, I looked out the window of my slowly passing vehicle, and there it was! Muddy tracks coming from the refuge area. Damn it, that did it! The hunt was on, and my gut feeling told me I could soon be hunting one of my own kind, that is, a law enforcement officer. This would account for the fact that whenever I used the sheriff’s office radio, the object of my attention would disappear for at least two weeks after the transmission. It just seemed to me that this fellow thought and did things like a cop. If that was the case, then I really had my work laid out for me. A “kill” in this arena would be earned with difficulty and richly deserved.

  I worked days and nights with an average of four hours of sleep per night as the hunt went on. Twice I was so close that the mud on the highway was still wet and sticky where minutes before he had fled from the field of battle. But no matter how hard I tried, he was nowhere to be found. Numerous nighttime stakeouts on the refuge near hog concentrations netted me nothing but mosquito bites by the zillions. I never heard a dog bark, never heard a shot, nothing!

  Then early one morning, several hours before daylight, it happened! My two guardian angels (I have two because of my size) were getting tired of only four hours of sleep per night and I guess had had enough. I was coming off a set-line case in the southern part of the county (108 hooks at $10 each—a good fine in those days) when my inner instincts along with my two angels, recognizable by the bags under their eyes, suggested I swing by the road I’d been watching. Parking in an adjacent field, I grabbed my flashlight, put on my hip boots, and cautioned Shadow to stay in the patrol rig. She didn’t like that order but always minded and never left that truck. I knew that if I took her, size 12’s dogs would wind her and the jig would be up. Moving carefully through the tall field grasses and weeds, I made my way to the hidey-hole where the lads always parked their vehicle. As I moved closer, the idea that the type of tread and boot soles should be the same as they were the first time ran through my mind. When I rounded the mound of dirt, my inner feeling that they would be there was so strong that I couldn’t believe it. It was physical, that’s how strong it was, and sure as shooting, there sat a 4x4 three-quarter-ton Ford pickup. I quickly fired off a prayer of thanks to the Great Game Warden in the Sky and then began the process of zeroing in on my prey.

  Across the fence I went, angling for the center of the area where I knew the hogs would more than likely be. It was an area thick with tules where they could make nests and be secure from everything except humans. I stayed close to the much-used escape route these lads had followed in the past with an eye toward the area used by the hogs. My senses were very acute that morning as I moved carefully, step by step, through the marsh toward what I hoped would be contact with size 12. It is amazing how your senses sharpen when you are stalking a human and know you are about to get him. I could smell as if there were no tomorrow. I could hear dogs barking on ranches I knew were at least two miles away, and damn, did I ever feel part of the moment! I had gone maybe three hundred yards into the area where I suspected these lads might be when I caught it! The stinking smell of a cigarette! Not as if someone were smoking but the odor you smell when someone has recently smoked a cigarette and then walks by you. Freezing, I let my ears take over with the aid of hands cupped over them to amplify the sounds. The sound of mosquitoes, a bittern’s croak, the jug-a-rum of several bullfrogs, more mosquitoes, and a tinkle.

  A tinkle? There it was again, a tinkle like that clear sound that comes from a silver bell. Yeah, I know. What the hell do I mean, a silver bell? Well, next time you get the chance, listen to a bell that is made of pure silver. It has its very own sound unlike any other you will hear. I had found a silver bell by one of the hog-dog battle sites earlier in the year, one with bite marks in it made by a hog.

  I remembered picking it up and wondering, then listening to the clear, crisp sound it projected and, not having the rest of the pieces, thinking no more about it until the moment I now shared with the night. These rascals. They had trained their dogs to a T. They didn’t stray far from their masters, they never barked, at least that I ever heard, and the poachers were tracking them through this trained closeness and the soft tinkle of a bell. What a way to poach! This lad was going to be a real catch if I could pull it off.

  There it was again! The smell of cigarette, not as strong as before but definitely there. I stood frozen in time and space as the whirlwind of events passed through my senses for evaluation. Few if any sounds came forth, just the inky blackness of night, the sting of mosquitoes, the tinkle of several bells now, and the whir of two sets of tired angel wings overhead. Then I heard the splashing of animals running through the marsh. In a few moments it became apparent that these sounds of life, with the very real possibility of death attached, would come fairly close to where I stood. I could hear the grunting of pigs, the splashing as they moved through the marsh, not in disorder yet, and the tinkling of those soft trademark silver bells sounding as if they were behind the oncoming hogs.

  Then for the first time I could hear heavier splashing like a larger animal moving clumsily through the marsh. No lights, just noises and my imagination. God, what an exhilarating moment. We’re about to meet, for better or worse, but you can bet the hide will be set on someone’s hind end before this event is finished, I thought. One on one, my ability against his for the trophy that comes with capture or escape. I now became aware of just how rigid my body was in anticipation of this moment. The splashing now picked up in tempo, as did the grunting of the hogs. Off in the distance I could hear one boar popping his tusks in anticipation of the meeting that was sure to come if the dogs continued to press their attack. Thinking back to my earlier episode with a similar tusker, I hoped that mad hog would be able to keep straight who was friend and who foe.

  Finally I could see the dark silhouettes of streams of hogs going by me off to one side about twenty yards away as they ran down an old levee. It appeared to be the sows and little ones making their escape, while the boars stayed behind to take care of the business at hand. Soon I could hear the unmistakable sound of battle taking place between the hogs and the dogs. The noise gave me the cover I needed, and I moved to the pigs’ defense as quickly and quietly as I could. Saying a fast prayer to my two tired but close-at-hand guardian angels to keep me out of the line of fire of the bullet that was inevitable for the hogs, off I went. The sounds of battle were now very real: the squealing of hogs, constant tinkling of bells, heavy splashing of humans running to the battle, and the sound of my racing heart as I made myself part of this dance with death. I had moved so close that I could smell wet dogs, cigarette smoke, and excrement from the hogs in terror as the dogs swirled around them and could hear the heavy breathing of humans close at hand for this moment of truth.

  Tinkle-tinkle went one very clear, close silver bell. “Eeeeeeeeeee,” squealed a large tusker as one of the dogs found a soft spot, and boom went a gun with its accompanying ball of flame not ten feet from where I now stood. The sickening whack of a bullet striking flesh and bone was quickly followed by a fireball in the night from the muzzle of what I now recognized as a pistol. It was a large-bore and sounded a lot like my own .44 magnum going off. Now the battle got real as the dogs realized their adversary was down.

  I heard a voice saying, “Shoot him again; he has one of the dogs down.”

  Boom went a gun again,
and this time the fireball illuminated the small group of human predators—save one very large one wearing a badge expectantly standing off to one side. In that micro-instant, I could see that the hog was down and covered by swirling dogs. Standing not six feet away were three men, two small (one of whom was holding a pistol in his hands) and one fellow weighing about 250 pounds. He was holding the gun that had just fired the last shot, and I decided right then and there that he was mine. They were so intent on their mission of destruction that they didn’t even see the very large threat at hand. Soon the fight in the hog went out with the juice of his body through two bullet holes, and the men gained control of the dogs. Then there was the unbroken blackness of night and the sounds an animal makes as he leaves this life. The soft tinkling of the bells could still be heard, and it was evident that the men were listening for the sounds of discovery and pursuit.