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

by Terry Grosz

  * * *

  The next morning I had the Willow Garage in Colusa replace my windshield and then moved into the east side of my district to check hunters in the hopes of finding those breaking the law and honoring them with a visit from the world’s largest tule creeper. That evening I hooked up with another deputy game warden trying to get in his monthly patrol hours. That lad will remain nameless for the duration of this story because he was worthless as tits on a side of bacon! I can’t remember ever running across a person with less common sense than that fellow. In those days, when you needed help you took what you could get, even if it was a halfwit.

  That day the ducks moved into the central part of my district, on Link Dennis’s land. Link was one of the most honest men I knew, and I knew he wouldn’t give me any problems in the illegal- duck-killing arena, but the market hunters would, regardless of who owned the property. They didn’t hold any boundaries sacred, so Link’s land was fair game, and that was where we positioned ourselves for the night. I hid my rig by Link’s farm buildings, and my partner and I ventured forth into the harvested rice fields in quest of those who were there with less-than-noble intentions. We hadn’t gone one hundred yards into the darkened field when we heard a rattle of shots indicative of a commercial shoot about 150 yards north of us. Trotting as best we could across the harvested rice field, I worked at opening the carrying case for the Starlight Scope. Once I had the scope out, I stopped, turned it on, and scanned the area to the north. I picked up three individuals hurriedly picking up and stacking what appeared to be ducks. Every now and then I could plainly see the white breast feathers of a male pintail as they hurried to gather up their kill before any game wardens interrupted their little evening of illegal work.

  Marking where we left our coats and scope case (so we could run faster), off we went as quickly as possible toward these lads. They didn’t have the foggiest idea we were coming because of the mantle of night, but I knew we’d have a hard time catching up to them. After working with Crazy Joe, the dragger who had taught me the tricks of the trade, I knew it was a long shot, but damn, just walking away from a situation like this left me cold. I just had to try, and maybe with a little luck... As we got close enough to try to run the lads down as they attempted to drag their kill across the fields toward a ditch, I stopped to gather my breath and form a plan. Observing them heading west across the field through the scope, my partner and I headed that way by running down a convenient rice ditch. Running until I figured we were about even with the lads but still forty yards out, I stopped and cautiously looked with the Starlight Scope over the edge of the ditch toward their last known position.

  The lads in question were only about thirty-five yards away and were looking hard in our direction. It was obvious they had heard us running down the ditch and were alert to the possibility of our presence. Slowly lowering myself back down in the ditch, I told my partner to be prepared to run like the wind because that would be the speed these lads would move once they saw us in pursuit. I told him about the lay of the land in front of us and to expect a long chase because market hunters hated getting caught more than anything else on account of the embarrassment it brought them in their home towns.

  We looked over the ditch into the night in the hunters’ direction and then put the scope on them again. They were still standing there, hoping against hope that the noise wasn’t what they feared the most. They had a huge pile of ducks at their feet, and I was sure they would hold still for as long as possible in order to hang on to their hard-won but illegal gains. Turning to my partner, I told him we would move out of the ditch and crawl as close as we could get without being discovered. Once they took alarm, he was to turn on his flashlight and take the man on the right and I would do the same with the one on the left. We would just have to let the third man in their group escape. With that hasty plan, I took one more look at the lads, then shut off the scope and left it where I could find it in the morning. Over the top we quietly crawled.

  Almost instantly my partner accidentally turned on his flashlight, giving away our position, and the race was on! My guy just happened to be a short, fast little fellow, and in about ten minutes he was out of the area of my light beam and gone. I tried to follow his tracks, but he was nowhere to be found in the dark and expanse of that thousand-acre rice field. I knew he was probably down and crawling off, but damned if I could see him, much less catch someone half my size who was scared as all get-out. With that maddening realization, I started the long trek back to my starting point, hoping my partner had done better. About twenty minutes later I was back at our ill-fated starting point looking over the pile of ducks the lads had left behind in their hurry to escape. There were about two hundred mallards and pintail lying there, ten ducks to a bunch, their necks tied together with butcher twine. A classic commercial-market-hunter hit! I had not recognized any of the lads when the lights went on and suspected that I may have had some of the Willows crowd in my field that night. I backtracked their footprints to where they had lain in wait for the ducks and picked up their empty shotgun shells. Looking out over where the shooting had occurred, I noticed that the ground was covered with feathers, cripples, and quite a few dead but abandoned females.

  Figuring I would pick those critters up later, I started to track my partner to see where the hell he had gone, since he sure as hell wasn’t in view. After walking about two hundred yards, I lost his track on the hard ground. I looked as far as my light beam would carry and could see nothing. Now I was beginning to worry. I waited a few yards from where I had lost his track, hoping to see his flashlight beam any moment, but no soap. I had lost his track by a series of ditches, so I returned to that area and figured I would try tracking from that position once again. Back at the ditches, I started my cold-tracking exercise again. I was passing a set of thirty-six-inch, vertically buried standpipe goose blinds when I heard a faint cry. Flashing my light to my right, I could see a pair of hands holding on to the sides of a standpipe!

  What the hell? I ran over to the pipe, and there hung my partner. He had apparently, at a full run, dropped into the standpipe. He was hanging there with a smashed nose and gouged-up knees, not wanting to let the bad guys know he was helpless and hoping I would find him. Damn, he had to have been in the pipe for at least forty-five minutes. But without his flashlight, he couldn’t look down into the dark to see how deep the pipe was, so he just hung there! He was exhausted but figured he was going to die if he fell any deeper into the pipe, so he was hanging on for dear life. A quick look revealed that the bottom was only six inches below his feet! He had hung there all that time for no reason at all! Helping him out, I could not imagine how anyone, at a full run, could get both feet into a thirty-six-inch-wide pipe! Well, this lad had certainly found the answer to that question. He was very embarrassed. But just as soon as he had been rescued, he was off and ready to fight like a real tough guy! All he could talk about was what he would do if he ever caught those chaps who had been the objects of our attention earlier in the evening. On and on he went until I had about had a gut full of how tough he was. We had just arrived back at the site where the ducks had been killed and were starting to pick up those we could salvage so they could be donated to a needy family when we both heard rustling in a large rice-straw pile about twenty yards away.

  Before I could say anything, my partner put his finger to his lips and mouthed, “Shhhh.” He then whispered, “The third shooter is hiding in the rice straw.” Not sure where he had gotten that idea, I kept my light on the rice straw while my partner stalked the pile as if it held a bomb. When he got within about ten feet, he let out a primal yell and, running at full speed, dove onto the pile. He had no sooner landed on the pile of straw than he bounded straight up into the air as if he’d been shot out of a cannon! Before he could say anything, I smelled exactly what had happened. Skunk! He had landed directly on a skunk that had been hunting mice in the straw pile and had been duly rewarded for his attack. Good God almighty, he was dan
cing around making all kinds of choking sounds when out came the black-and-white object of his earlier attention and gave it to him again from about three feet away! By now the smell of skunk was becoming overpowering, and I moved out of the way to let nature work its course.

  In about ten minutes my partner had recovered enough to speak. It’s amazing what a little skunk spray can do to help one gain a little worldly perspective. It had helped my partner gain a whole lot of perspective! With the fire gone out him, we got back to the business at hand, namely, picking up and stacking ducks. Moving them over to the ditch we had run down earlier, we stacked the birds in a place where the shooters wouldn’t easily find them, gathered up our previously discarded gear, and headed for the truck, since there was no use remaining here any longer after all the disturbances. When we reached the truck, my partner, realizing his smell was socially unacceptable, asked me how he was going to get home. I pointed with my light beam to the back of the truck. He looked at me for a moment and then climbed in for the ride back to his vehicle. When we arrived at my home, he stripped down bare-assed naked, got into his own car, and drove off. Somehow, I don’t think removing his clothing helped a whole lot. He had really taken a shot from that surprised skunk and had to be a real joy to be around for the next week.

  * * *

  Over the next couple of days, it stormed like the furies of hell, and the ducks reacted accordingly. They were scattered, spooky, and very difficult to approach. The night shooters left them alone, and I worked the standard “bomber-turn” late waterfowl shooters instead. During weather patterns heavy with storms, I could really make hay with the late shooters, and I did. Then the sky cleared, and for the next several days we had a “dragger’s moon” (one that casts enough light to shoot the ducks but not enough for the game wardens to chase hunters successfully without using a light).

  That evening my brother-in-law, Joe Galipeau, arrived from his home in Sacramento. Never did a scrappier lad live than Joe. He was a little stump of a man but had more nerve, common sense, and work ethic than any dozen other men. He came to pursue his much-loved sport of hunting birds. I always ignored his desires and took him hunting “yardbirds” instead. Joe always seemed to enjoy himself either way—hunting birds or his fellow human—and was equally good at both. He wasn’t a credentialed officer, so he just rode backup for me. I never had any problems with Joe at my back. Not having the opportunity to look in his direction during altercations, I never knew what he was doing to keep my back clear, but whatever it was, it worked! On this particular night, after a good dinner, we loaded our gear into the truck and worked our way north toward the Butte City area. I explained how the birds were working and what to expect from the illegal night hunters and anything else of interest related to our night’s activities.

  The wind was blowing, which made the birds very spooky, so we staked out about seventy-five thousand birds feeding in several rice fields from quite a distance away. The place I chose was well hidden, and we could see for several miles across the flat farmland in every direction. Along about midnight I was beginning to tire again and, mindful of the train incident, vowed not to let my body wear down that far again. Looking over at Joe, I could tell he was tired too. He had probably worked a sixteen-hour shift at the air force base and then driven up to be with me so I could abuse his body some more. I said, “Let’s go, Joe, I’ve had enough.” Out from our hiding place we drove without headlights and up onto a road that passed through the thousands of feeding ducks. Wanting to scare the ducks and anyone sneaking up on them, I thought of turning on my lights and siren again, the usual game-warden tactic in those days. But remembering the mishap of the duck bombardment several nights earlier, I thought better of it.

  Then I remembered the herding rockets I had in the back of the truck. We used these foot-long rockets to herd feeding ducks off the unharvested rice fields to keep the birds from destroying the crops. The rockets were little speed demons that went about a thousand feet and then blew up with a hell of a roar. Digging one out from the junk in the box in the bed of my truck, I slipped in a fuse and tried to light it, but the wind was blowing so hard I couldn’t get it to light. I tried several times with wooden matches, all to no avail. Finally I stood the rocket on the ground on its legs and held Joe’s lighter to the fuse while he held his cupped hands on the windward side. The fuse finally lit. As it sputtered into life, Joe moved off to the windward side and I to the lee side. Whoosh went the rocket, but instead of moving straight up into the air as they usually did, the damned thing headed right into the wind and hit Joe, who was standing upwind, right in the crotch!

  Joe, mindful of the consequences of the rocket exploding, tried to brush the rocket away. But the rocket kept going full steam, stuck in the crotch of his pants. By now Joe was getting frantic, realizing the boom was not far off—and not nearly far enough from his manhood! Finally, in a last desperate act, Joe turned and started to run. This action threw the rocket off, and it hit the ground. Not to be denied, up came the rocket, and off it went into the wind again. Well, Joe was running upwind, and here came the rocket after Joe as if it had something against Frenchmen! Just before it got to Joe’s last part over the fence, it ran out of gas and blew up. Boom! I thought for a second the rocket had blown Joe’s hind end clear off. But what I saw fly off was not his ass but his handkerchief!

  Joe returned to the truck amidst hundreds of thousands of flailing wings trying to get airborne and leave the rice fields before the boom got them. We started to laugh, and agreed that we should go home before anything else happened. On the way home I began to run the last few days’ events through my mind, all failures as far as catching the night shooters was concerned. I took the next several days off and spent them with Joe, hunting ducks and incidentally making only about a dozen cases involving waterfowl violations as we tried to rest amidst God’s creatures.

  * * *

  Saturday found me with a dragger’s moon and raring to go. The ducks were feeding just about everywhere, and it made no difference where I went—every place was just as good as the next. Moving out onto Newhall Farms between 2-Mile and 4-Mile Roads, I ditched my truck and crawled out into a pile of ducks whose numbers boggled the mind. There had to be at least 150,000 ducks feeding in that area adjacent to Delevan National Wildlife Refuge and on the Newhall Farms property. Typical—a ton of work and a one-seventh-ton man to do the job! I picked a beautiful hiding place right next to a mound of dirt alongside a ditch near about fifty thousand feeding ducks. There appeared to be a lot of feed in the area, and with a light wind the birds were pretty much staying put. A farmer had put a bunch of rice boxes by my dirt mound, and I fashioned them into a little fort from which I could look out but that would prevent anyone who didn’t know I was there from spotting me. Throughout the night, the ducks fed right up to my feet in my location by the dry ditch and never did see me. It was great! I had enough moon so I didn’t need my Starlight Scope, but I was sobered by the fact that the night shooters wouldn’t need anything to help them with their plans either.

  About two-thirty a.m., I sensed there was something behind me larger than any animal I expected to be in those fields—anything wild, that is! Freezing, I listened like the animal I wished I was. There it was again: something was coming my way. I slowly reached for my pistol and took it out of the holster, reassured by the cold-steel feel in my hand. I was sure someone could hear my heart if they were listening! There was the sound again, only, this time it was closer, really close. The damn ducks were again feeding near me, and their feeding noises made it hard for me to hear what was going on behind me. As the ducks moved closer, the noise behind me was drowned out by the clattering of thousands of bills.

  The next thing I remember was a sudden feeling of a vacuum by my head, followed by the ear-splitting roar of a shotgun going off not two feet over my head. I burrowed into the ground, quickly covering my ears as numerous shots went off just above me. What made it even worse was the fact that I had surrounde
d myself with those rice boxes, and they were now acting as reflection boards to amplify the sound. I rolled on the ground in pain as the booming continued for what seemed like a century. Then it was quiet except for the ringing in my ears! Goddamnit, I could hardly hear. I had sense enough not to move, but those damned guns had gone off right over my head. It was a good thing I had not stood up in panic. The shooters would have unknowingly cut me in half with the charges of lead they had sailed into the feeding ducks in the field! Rolling over, I turned within my fort and looked back. Nothing. I waited for a few minutes and then could faintly hear men talking. They weren’t more than four feet from me, just on the other side of the berm and my rice-box fort. At first I could make out only muffled sounds, but as my hearing returned, I could make out a few words over the ringing. “Got a lot,” “See anyone,” “Damn,” and then “Shhhh.”

  I continued to wait for about thirty minutes, not moving, waiting for the lads in the ditch behind me to make their move so I could counter. In front of me flopped hundreds of injured ducks. Bastards! I thought. If I get half a chance, you folks are going to feel the sting of the long arm of the law, count on that!

  Soon wounded ducks began crawling by me, trying to hide in the boxes next to my feet and in the adjacent weeds. One little pintail crawled right next to me and died alongside my leg. I reached over and held his warm body in my hand but didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to—he had said it for me. Then a human form surprised me by reaching into where I sat, grabbing another wounded duck, and wringing its neck. At that moment I reached out from my hiding place and “wrung” his. In my younger days I had the grip of a bear. That is exactly the grip I put on the back of that man’s neck, jerking him into me! There was a groan, and he just went limp. I had scared the bastard so badly that he passed out in my hand.