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

by Terry Grosz

  John knew I had him, and he just stood there, stunned at the direction I had taken and his own knowledge regarding this incident. I went on, “If I catch you in the field hunting, I will kill you. Just remember, with your rotten police record, I’ll just tell the investigating officers that you went wild when I went to check you and I had to defend myself. Then, bingo, we are even.” I am sure that by that point in our conservation, my eyes had turned gunfighter blue, and that moment had not been lost on John. He couldn’t even speak. His lips just mouthed words that didn’t come. The look in his eyes told it all. He had come to gloat and instead found a wall of intensity he couldn’t overcome or lie through. I have seen that same look in the eyes of dying men or those who didn’t care if they lived or died. It is a unique look, but one you recognize when the time comes. I turned and walked away before I really lost control and killed him right there on Main Street with my bare hands.

  It was kind of funny that over the next few years, every time I met John in the field, even if he was with his friends, he would always break down his shotgun or rifle, depending on what he was hunting, and give the parts to his buddies. He then kept his hands in plain view and responded to my every question as if not wanting to anger me.

  As a result of this little “hoorah,” the illegal duck hunting and commercial market hunting on that side of the valley ceased entirely for the rest of that winter season. I didn’t hear another rattle of shots by market hunters that season anywhere on that side of the valley. I guess the word got out that they had “dumped” the game warden but had not killed him or injured him badly enough to keep him out of their hair, so they decided instead to stay out of mine.

  I guess that’s the price one pays for not doing it right the first time, regardless of what side of the fence you are on. By the way, I later learned that John had moved away from Colusa to become a guide and outfitter in Wyoming.

  I wondered if John knew that he was now living and working in my new federal law enforcement district. In the fall of 1989 he found out...

  Chapter Twelve

  The Gold Dust Twins

  In the spring of 1966 I successfully competed for one of twenty-five California state Fish and Game warden positions among 1,300 other applicants. Having passed the written test, oral examination, and physical, twenty-three of the successful twenty-five were soon shipped off to a basic law enforcement academy in the foothills near San Bernardino in southern California (the remaining two didn’t have to go because they had already met state training requirements).What a hole! I don’t remember how the rest of the chaps felt, but I had traded Humboldt County in northwestern California, with its 140 inches of rainfall per year (temperate rain forest), for San Bernardino County, a lower Sonoran Desert clime with no rainfall per year. It was hot, smoggy, and loaded with a jillion people, and the instructors treated the twenty-three Fish and Game recruits as if we were the lowest level of life in the entire law enforcement community. Basically, they didn’t recognize wildlife law enforcement as “real” law enforcement. Today’s FBI statistics annually show that officers practicing wildlife law enforcement in all its realms suffer a nine times higher injury and death rate than all other types of law enforcement. I guess that is “real” enough.

  It soon became apparent that we game-warden types had better band together in order to survive the prejudice of the penal code law enforcement officers and instructors. This we did, with a few mishaps that were more or less squared away by Captain Hal Mefford, our Fish and Game “house mother” and a damn good man. In the end we supplied six of the top ten academics, we swept the shooting trophies, I was nominated the class president, the top athlete came from the Fish and Game lads, and one of our officers killed all of the pet cats that belonged to the prisoners who maintained the academy grounds and cooked all of the trainees’ meals during the week. Cat lovers should be aware that cats are among the most efficient predators on the face of the planet. The area around the academy, the only green spot for miles, was a lure to every cottontail rabbit in the country. The prisoners’ cats would constantly drag in these cottontails, leaving them to rot on the campus sidewalks, until one of our officers, let’s just call him Mike, took to killing the cats with his pistol on the weekends while the prisoners were back in lockup. The rest of us would have helped Mike kill the cats, but we couldn’t hit them. Fortunately, Mike could, and when we departed there wasn’t a cat left to kill the cottontails.

  The practice of using prisoners to do the grunt work at the academy ended shortly after we finished the program. It seemed that they had even had one of the prisoners doing all the ammunition loading until he intentionally stuck a lead bullet in the powder-drop tube on the automatic loader for about five hundred loading sequences. Then he removed the bullet and let the machine continue loading cartridges. This lad mixed the fully loaded cartridges in with those lacking powder and then left the country. Officers on the pistol ranges were surprised the next week in the speed-shooting sequences with “squib” cartridges followed by fully loaded rounds, and the subsequent explosion when the loaded round found the barrel of the gun obstructed by the squib round. Needless to say, prison details at the academy ended shortly thereafter. Let’s hope the cats did as well.

  The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Academy was utilized by many law enforcement entities, and we game wardens found ourselves representing one of thirteen different agencies in our particular class. There were eighty officers in this class, twenty-three of whom were game wardens. Being the largest single voting contingent, we ruled the waves, so to speak. My being selected class president was an honor, I thought, until I rapidly found out that I had to answer to all the complaints (mostly justified) lodged against us game-warden types by the others, which was a pain in the last part over the fence. The problem stemmed from a clash between “us” and “them.” Every one of the game-warden recruits was college trained, many with masters degrees. With a few exceptions we were older than most of the others in our class, highly confident in our abilities (though in some the confidence was misplaced), and aggressive to a man. This attitude, I am sure, was seen by the rest of the class as arrogance, and their reaction caused a lot of tiffs. We game-warden types lumped together in that class went on to become lifelong friends and supporters of each other throughout the years we were professionally and personally associated. Death took many early, but that did not deter those of us who survived from sustaining our academy relationships.

  One of the friendships I made at the academy was with Bob Hawks. Bob was a short little son of a gun (of course, most everyone is shorter than I am) of California Indian descent. He was an excellent pistol shot, always let you know where you stood in terms that were easy to understand, and was totally dedicated to catching those breaking the law. Our friendship grew throughout our time at the academy, and we kept in touch as best as we could after we left and were assigned to different duty stations scattered throughout the state. One day along about 1968, I received a phone call from my Fish and Game captain, Jim Leamon. Jim told me that the newly-selected game warden for Yuba City was none other than Bob Hawks, and he asked whether I know Bob. “Hell, yes,” I said. “We were the best of friends in the academy.”

  Jim said, “Good, how about showing him around, especially the east-side boundary area between your two districts, when he arrives?”

  I answered, “Sure, that would be no problem. I can use the help, especially on some of the night-fishing camps along that eastern boundary.”

  Jim told me that Bob would be arriving in the next couple of weeks and advised me to set some time aside to give him a hand, especially on the administrative side of the work required by his district policy. I told the captain I would be happy to help and complimented him for making such an excellent selection.

  I spent the next several weeks working night fishermen and deer spotlighters, altogether forgetting the arrival of my friend in Yuba City because of this extensive but exciting work load. Patrolling the east side
of my district early one morning, I was surprised to hear Bob calling me on the radio.

  I responded, “Bob, what is your location?”

  He gave me a 10-20 (location) about ten miles away, near a great little restaurant I knew, so I told him to meet me there. Our reunion was, as expected, noisy and full of name-calling on both sides. Bob and Lynn (his wife) had just arrived at their new home in Yuba City, and Bob told me that Captain Leamon had directed him to work with me for two weeks to learn the ropes, so to speak. I was really pleased to have Bob in our patrol squad and couldn’t wait to get going, so I said, “How about starting tonight after I get a few hours’ sleep?”

  Bob answered, “Sure, what time and where do you want me to meet you?”

  I gave him directions to my home in Colusa and we parted company, two very happy warriors who were soon going to make history in the Sacramento Valley Fish and Game squad.

  * * *

  That evening Bob arrived at my home and had a chance to meet my wife, Donna. They hit it off immediately. Bob and Donna were a lot alike, very quick, sharp-witted, and personable. I had to give Donna the edge, though, when it came to one-upmanship. She was lightning quick with her wit, and when she was in top form, few could stay with her. As I said, an instant friendship developed between those two, which further cemented the friendship between Bob and me. Since I was now ready to go, off we two warriors went into the night to see what life had to offer.

  Slowly moving through some of my valley areas, basically farmland, Bob and I, like any friends who were something of a pair of knotheads, got to challenging each other to lofty pinnacles of endeavor regarding who we would catch that night and what type of case it would be. I challenged Bob to pick a case, any case, and my district would produce it. A little bit of bragging was normal in Colusa County, especially if I was on one end of the “wind.” In fact, a whole lot of bragging would occur before the night was over, and, fortunately or unfortunately, depending on which side you were on (legal or illegal), God was listening. Now, when God listens in on these kind of conversations, which He really shouldn’t do, a little bit of the devil gets into His mess kit. The next thing you know, God has gone and done it! Regarding the aforementioned challenge, good old God got to mucking around big time, and Bob and I paid the price!

  Bob, always up for a challenge in which he could shame the German, or “Nazi,” as he called me, thought long and hard and then said, “How about a set-line case?”

  Damn, he picked a hard one right off the bat, I thought. Maybe I had been too hasty in my mouthing off. However, a good German can’t back down in the presence of his friend the “Digger Indian,” as I called him, so I said, “Sure, and how many hooks?”

  Bob said, “What?”

  “It’s not hard to make a set-line case in Colusa County. How many hooks?” I repeated.

  He thought for a second and said, “How about eighty?” Goddamn, I about flipped. I had only made six set-line cases in Colusa County since my arrival a year earlier, and none had had more than twenty hooks. They were few and far between and a bear to make. Maybe this time I had gone too far in the “wind” department. But seeing Bob’s eagerness to trap me, I said, “No problem. Butte Creek, here we come.”

  A set line was nothing more than a very heavy monofilament line, eighty- to one-hundred-pound test, stretched from bank to bank on a small slow-moving river or stream with shorter, lighter monofilament lines tied at intervals along the main line with hooks and bait at their ends. These secondary lines trailed off on the downstream side of the main line, which was usually anchored to tree roots on the stream bank or some other object that would hold up under the weight of the line and any fish that it might catch. Set lines were very effective at removing large numbers of fish all at once and were outlawed in most western states. In Colusa County, the minimum bail in those days was $100 for the set-line offense plus $10 per hook on that set line. In 1968 that added up to very big money in short order if one were apprehended running set lines of any magnitude.

  It was dark now, and Bob and I prowled Butte Creek like Genghis Khan did the steppes of Mongolia. We discovered several people with minor fishing violations, but no set lines were to be found. Bob, obviously enjoying my friendly-competition-caused discomfort, was really giving me a razzing. I was trapped by my big mouth and knew it, but damned if I would give in to that stump of a person! We had a hamburger riding on our little challenge, and I never lost a hamburger bet.

  About two a.m. I noticed the wake of a boat moving up the creek ahead of our patrol vehicle as we ran without lights along the east-side levee of Butte Creek. Bob spotted it about the same time I did and put his binoculars on the boat running at the head of the wake. Just like clockwork, the boat moved to a stand of willows on the east bank of Butte Creek. The two lads, not aware of our presence, shut off their boat motor and used shielded flashlights to pick up the submerged main line of a set line and to pull themselves slowly hand over hand along the set line, across Butte Creek to the west side, checking and rebaiting the hooks and removing the fish. They removed eleven catfish as they went, knocking them on the heads and throwing them into a gunnysack in the bottom of their boat.

  Bob and I couldn’t believe our eyes! That was the mother of all set lines. No two ways about it, that monster had to be at least one hundred feet in length with at least eighty hooks. Once finished, the lads started up their outboard and proceeded upstream to their fishing camp, where they removed their fish from the gunnysacks in the boat and placed them in ice chests for safekeeping. Damn, talk about too good to be true. Bob and I forgot about our little bet as we swung into the behavior commonly associated with game wardens starting to hunt their own kind, that is, humans in the “screwup” mode.

  “Bob,” I said, “they came from downstream; that means they must have more set lines down there.”

  The lads’ activity had not been lost on Bob, and he said, “We better get this rig out of here where they can’t see it so we can start following them on foot as they move up and down Butte Creek.”

  I hurriedly agreed and moved the patrol truck off the levee and into a thick stand of cottonwood trees. Over the truck went my camouflage parachute, and we were set for any action that was to follow. Moving back to the levee on foot, Bob and I positioned ourselves directly across from and out of sight of the fishing camp and patiently sat there amid the jillions of biting mosquitoes. One hour later, the lads got back into their boat and slowly headed down Butte Creek, all the while watching out for the local game warden yet not seeing us patiently jogging along the levee in the dark thirty or so yards behind them. Sure as hell, the lads went about 150 yards downstream to another bunch of willows growing along the east bank of Butte Creek, retrieved a submerged set line with a bow hook, and commenced to move along the line to the west bank, all the while removing fish and debris and rebaiting the hooks. Finishing that chore, they floated downstream a short distance, started up the motor, and moved carefully up the center of the stream, where the set line would be sunk to its deepest point, to avoid cutting the line with their propeller. Bob and I jogged back upstream after the lads to their second set line, the one we had originally spotted them working on, and again watched them repeat their earlier actions, checking and rebaiting the fish hooks. Once finished, the fishermen again floated downstream a short distance, started up their outboard motor, and then moved upstream over the center of the set line and back to their fishing camp to wait through the next line-checking interval.

  Moving back down the levee to the lower set line, I stripped naked and entered the water below the line. Swimming upstream in the dark, I carefully felt for the submerged set line. Locating it, I followed it across Butte Creek, checking the hooks until I found one with a catfish on it. Hanging on with one hand against the stream’s languid flow, I took the fish in the other hand and with my teeth nipped off the very tip of its dorsal fin. That way I had a marked fish for the bad guys to sack up for evidence, if needed, to more than e
stablish that these lads were really the ones guilty of running the set line—and it didn’t hurt the fish in any way. Carefully releasing the fish with the hook still in its mouth, I let the line settle back down into the water to the depth of my arm and then quickly let go so I would not be caught by the hooks on either side. Floating downstream until I was free of the line, I swam to shore and grabbed Bob’s hand for assistance in getting up the steep, muddy bank. Fighting off the mosquitoes attracted to my carcass, I hurriedly dressed. Bob and I then sat patiently by this set line and waited.

  About forty-five minutes later, here came our lads. As one of them reached for the set line tied to a willow limb on the bank next to where we were hiding, Bob, who had hidden his tiny body in the willows, reached out and grabbed the bow of the boat. At the same time I turned on my flashlight and told them, “State Fish and Game wardens. Hold it right there!” The two lads froze, not having dreamed there was a game warden in miles, as I moved down the bank and grabbed the stern of their boat.

  After we identified ourselves and showed them our badges, Bob had one of the lads get out and stand by me. Bob then got into the boat, and he and the remaining lad cut the set line attached to the willow on our side and drifted across Butte Creek, rolling up the rest of the set line. Cutting it free from the west-bank willow bush, they returned to our side of the stream. Bob handed me the rolled-up set line, and then he and his “partner” moved upstream to the other set line and repeated the retrieval process.

  Counting the hooks as Bob took the two lads’ driver’s licenses, I came up with a total of 167 hooks! This, plus the thirty-five fish over the limit they had back at camp, amounted to $850 total per person in fines (we couldn’t go higher than $500 per offense, hence the $850 total for both offenses). Both lads were apprised that failure to appear would send the system after them, and from their scared behavior it was apparent that they would gladly take care of their fines (as they did). Bob and I squared away our evidence, including the fin-clipped catfish (which turned out to be unnecessary), and headed for home with visions of $1,700 in fines dancing in our heads. Without a doubt, this was the largest set-line case made in Colusa County up to that time. Man, was I tickled, not to mention relieved at winning the monster-case bet with my partner.