by Terry Grosz
They immediately objected, indicating that it hadn’t been them but some other hunters farther to the west of their duck blind. “No way,” I quietly told them. “I have been within forty yards of your position in direct line of sight the whole time and watched both of you shoot over an hour after legal shooting hours with my binoculars.” They could argue all they wanted because as far as I was concerned, they had broken the law in plain view and both of them were going to get citations for late-shooting waterfowl. On top of that, I had observed them walking directly toward me after they finished shooting. There was no question in my mind about who had violated the law. Overexplaining, as game wardens will do, I pointed out that the man shooting the 16- or 20-gauge shotgun had quit shooting three minutes earlier than the one shooting the 12-gauge shotgun. The two hunters looked at each other and then really raised a fuss. It seemed that both were shooting 12-gauge shotguns, and now I was the one in error. I knew my ears had not deceived me, but when I examined their shotguns, I found that both men had Browning 12-gauge semiautomatic shotguns.
That turn of events put me in a little bit of a quandary. I knew my ears had not deceived me: there had been a sound difference between the two guns. The attorneys were now getting bolder, sensing a weakness in my case, and began to press me for the name of my supervisor, my badge number, and so on, as some attorneys are known to do, as a matter of course, to intimidate an officer. They again told me that the real culprits had been in a blind farther to their west and said that if I hurried, I might still be able to catch them, although they doubted it because of my large size and my inability to identify real culprits when I saw them. Equally determined (translation: hardheaded), I told them again that they would both receive citations for late shooting, and that was that! If they cared to argue the case further, the floor of the court was the place to carry on that activity, I added.
One of the lads told me that his shotgun had broken a few minutes before the other chap had finished shooting and that he would be damned if he was going to accept a citation for late- shooting waterfowl when he had a broken gun. Taking his shotgun, I examined it to verify his story. I was buying time until I could sort out the difference in what I was seeing and what I knew I had heard. Sure as shooting, he had a shell jammed in the chamber, which would have prevented any shells from feeding into the chamber from the magazine. I looked closely at the shell stuck in the chamber of his 12-gauge Browning shotgun and, to my glee, discovered that it was a 16-gauge shell! That is, the shell was one size smaller than his gun was safe to use. In shooting it, the shell case had expanded and stuck in the chamber of his shotgun. God, was I glad to see that stuck shell. A 16-gauge, when fired, makes a softer sound than a 12-gauge shell. This chap had been shooting shells of the wrong caliber in his shotgun and was very lucky he hadn’t had an explosion and lost an eye in the process. Like a successful gunfighter of old blowing the smoke off the end of his pistol barrel before placing it back into the holster, I casually handed the shotgun back to the owner and pointed out why his shotgun had quit on him.
After an agitated examination, there was an abject and stunned silence and then a shaking of both heads in disbelief. Further examination of the game bag of the man who had been shooting the off-size shells produced numerous 16-gauge shells mixed in with his 12-gauge shells. A dangerous situation, to say the least. Thanks to his fine, strong Browning shotgun, he had avoided an accident that could have done a whole lot more damage than just a stuck shell. I took that moment to inform both gentlemen that I needed their driver’s licenses so I could issue citations for the late shooting of waterfowl. The arguments refuting my accusations based on what I had heard with my game warden ears faded away, and the following week the two attorneys paid a $145 fine each, without incident.
Conservation officers, like any other officers, rely on many facets of their senses to increase their efficiency and success. On that particular evening so long ago, a game warden’s ears cocked and listening to the flight of thousands of ducks were also able to discern the difference between a 12-gauge shotgun shooting 12-gauge shells and a 12-gauge shotgun shooting 16-gauge shells from half a mile away, much to the chagrin of the hunters and much to the relief of the marsh inhabitants.
Even today, my joy in listening to the heartbeat of a marsh is warmed by the remembrance of yesteryear, two insistent attorneys, and a young man’s ears.
Chapter Eighteen
Crazy Joe and the Drag
After my transfer to Colusa County, I spent many hours learning about the Sacramento Valley: its people, its wildlife populations, and its hunting subculture, especially as it related to illegal commercial wildlife-harvesting activity. One of my major problems in the Sacramento Valley at that time was trying to slow down the illegal commercial-market hunting of waterfowl. This activity consisted of hunters going at night into the rice fields, where the waterfowl, primarily ducks, were feeding, sneaking up on them, and shooting them on the ground as they fed in tightly packed masses, sometimes as many as fifty thousand feeding in a bunch. The hunters would then either haul the carcasses out or have their buyers go to the kill site the next day, taking all the risks of course, and haul them from the fields themselves. These rice-fed wild ducks would then end up in the commercial markets of some major west coast city or be shipped to commercial markets as far away as New York via rail or truck.
Many old-timers used to tell me that the tried-and-true method was to ambush the feeding ducks from behind a rice check as the ducks, in a compact mass, fed up to your place of concealment. They would use shotguns with homemade magazine extenders that increased the shell capacity from five to fifteen. With that kind of firepower, they would kill from three hundred to a thousand or more birds, depending on the number of shooters. After the shoot had been pulled, the shooters would either lie down and look to see if the game wardens were coming or run like hell and come back later to pick up their ducks after the area had cooled off. In such a situation there were always many crippled ducks, probably twice as many as the dead ones. The market hunter would move out among the carpet of dead and dying ducks, picking them up and placing them by twos between his fingers until he had eight in his hand. Any birds still alive and struggling would be bitten across the head, thereby crushing their skulls. Once the hunter had eight to ten birds in hand, he would hurriedly wrap a piece of butcher twine around the necks below the heads and above his fingers, cinch it tightly, and then drop the bundle to the ground. When all the birds that could be picked had been gathered, sometimes a rope would be tied to all of the bundles and the ducks would be dragged out of the field like some long daisy chain. This is how the term drag came into play when one talked about a duck shoot by commercial market hunters in the Sacramento Valley, according to some of the old-timers I met over the years. To drag the ducks meant to slaughter them on the ground at night as they fed, killing large numbers for the market or one’s own freezer. Those in the business of killing large quantities of ducks for either the market or their personal consumption were called draggers.
On one of my days off during the fall, I decided I had better spend some time getting my house ready for the winter storms that would soon appear. As I worked around the yard winterizing my sprinkler system, up drove an old beat-up pickup. The driver just sat there in the cab in front of my home and watched me work on the sprinklers. I thought that behavior somewhat odd, but I couldn’t leave what I was working on just yet, so I continued with my task. When I finished what I was doing, I got up out of the mud that had water pipe going in every direction and walked over to greet the unknown driver and see who he was and what he wanted. Approaching the vehicle, I saw that the driver was not anyone I knew, so I said, “Good morning, may I help you?”
He said, “No, I just wanted to see what the dumbest son of a bitch in the valley looked like.”
Somewhat taken aback by this very old man’s boldness, I said, “Well, that is a matter of opinion.”
“No, that is an accurate state
ment,” he responded. “I have watched you bumble along in the rice fields at night, and you are walking right by too many draggers. Because of your inability to catch them or really understand what the ins and outs of the killing profession are, they’re getting bolder.”
He continued, “To be frank, they are my competition, and I need them out of the way. Since I have this problem and you really aren’t part of the solution as yet, I have a proposition for you.”
What he had said was pretty much on the money. I hadn’t been able to get to the draggers in any way as yet because of my inexperience and my inability to get anyone in the valley to trust the new game warden and come forward with information on how to work these tight-knit groups of duck-killing sons of guns. In fact, my level of frustration was so high that at that time I would have teamed up with the devil if it meant some of these lads killing the ducks at night would fall into my pretty much empty hands. Something inside me told me this chap might be the ticket. To me, the eyes tell it all, and in this chap’s case they did. His eyes were cold, calculating, intelligent, and a little bit crazy. Well, I thought, what have you got to lose, Terry? You still know right from wrong, so let’s give it a whirl; you can always get off when you want. Little did I know that the rush I gained from this man in the form of knowledge would remain in my system until I retired some thirty years or so later.
“What is your offer?” I asked cautiously yet curiously.
“I’ll tell you what,” he answered, “I will teach you how to catch the draggers in the valley. If you pay attention to what I tell you, then maybe the fields won’t be so cluttered by my competition. I am just getting too old to run with the younger men who are truly not worthy of this profession, and you can be of assistance to me, as I see it.”
“Why don’t you just quit if it’s getting too hard for you? It’s not like it’s legal and all,” I said. The look he gave me told me not to go there; that was not an intelligent question as far as he was concerned. The look in his light blue eyes told it all. This was something he had been doing for the better part of sixty years. When one is into the hunt for that long a time, it becomes a way of life. “Sorry,” I said. The apology seemed to satisfy him.
I looked at him for a few more moments and then said, “What about you? Where do you fit in this picture if I catch you doing the same thing you want me to prevent others from doing?”
He gave me a funny look, and his blue eyes snapped as he said, “You won’t. If you are fortunate enough to catch me, then I will pay up just like a slot machine, no problem. But don’t worry, that won’t be an option you will have to live with.”
Ignoring what he said and the way he said it because I had aspirations of my own regarding this chap as well as all the others, I said, “Well, that sounds pretty good to me. I’m always willing to learn.” I stuck out my hand and added, “My name is Terry Grosz. You got a deal.”
Refusing my hand, he answered, “I know who you are. You just call me Joe, and I will call you when I am ready.” With that, he started up his clunker red Ford pickup and drove off, leaving me to memorize his license-plate number. Brother, I thought. Getting to know Colusa County and its people was going to be quite a challenge. Never in my wildest dreams did I think anyone in this county would step forward to help the game warden. Until then, hardly a single person had even offered a hand in friendship. Other than the Colusa County sheriff’s officers, who were most helpful, the others in the county politely turned their backs on Fish and Game folks for the most part. People in Colusa County had a reputation of doing what they wanted and when, and they figured that tradition was just fine and would continue if they had anything to do with it. In addition, some of my Fish and Game predecessors had not really carried the cause too well in the eyes of the folks we were supposed to be serving. However, there was still the issue of the law of the land, and I was bound and determined to make the county safe for natural resources as well as preserving those resources for people yet to come. Boy, what a mouthful I had taken without yet knowing it.
My mind ran back to the meeting I had just had with Joe. Here it was, a nest on the ground if this chap came through. Going into the house, I called the sheriff’s office and asked them to run Joe’s license plate so I could find out who my “friend” really was. The plate came back registered to a local farming corporation, so I was no further ahead on this chap than before. However, I still had my friend Tom, who knew everyone in the valley, or so it seemed, so I made a call to him. Tom told me the fellow I had met, based on my description, was a very bad man and crazy to boot. Tom suggested that I be very careful around him because he would just as soon shoot me as look at me. Tom also informed me that this chap came from a family that had been in the valley for years and that had killed and sold to the San Francisco markets a lot of ducks. There was a long silence on the phone, and then Tom added, “Misser Grosz, if he wants to help you learn how to catch draggers, there is none better.” Thanking Tom, I hung up and wondered what the hell I was letting myself in for.
I later found out about more about my mystery friend by nosing around, and as a result added a little bit more to my knowledge of him. Let’s just call him Crazy Joe. He was an old man, probably in his middle to late sixties, of medium height and build, dark complected, with the bluest of eyes that spoke of a violence barely kept under the surface. He had a hair-trigger temper and was prone to shoot at anyone who crossed onto his small farm or the property of his employer. There were even those who claimed to have crossed into his hunting territory and had to lie in a rice ditch all day as a result of Joe’s prowess with a rifle keeping them there. What a pair we would make, I thought, the law and the lawless. I had made up my mind a long time ago that I would take the outlaws out any way I could just as long as it was legal. Now, with Joe as my partner, the possibility of payback loomed large and a whole lot nearer than any time before. The thought of finally being able to run some of these duck-killing chaps to the ground gave me a damn good feeling, to say the least. I always worked hard, but many times I had to work harder just to offset my lack of knowledge. If I could work hard the way my body allowed and for once really know what I was doing, the critters might just have a chance, I thought. A large grin was starting to spread over my tired face—one of those “God really does love game wardens” types of grin.
For two weeks nothing happened, and I began to feel that Crazy Joe wasn’t going to work out. If he really had a desire to slow down his competition, surely he would have called me by now, I thought. Then one evening as a light misty rain was falling, my phone rang. I had just sat down to a hurried supper so I could get back into the field when Donna said, “A Joe is on the phone.” I picked up the phone and heard a voice say, “Let’s go.”
“Where?” I asked. He described a duck club north of Gunner’s Field in the Lambertville complex. “I know where it is, but how do I find you in that maze?” I asked.
“I will find you; see you shortly.” Then the voice was gone. Leaving the dinner table, I headed into my bedroom, grabbed a clean shirt, pinned on my badge, and headed for the door. As I went out, Donna knowingly handed me a thick meat sandwich. She had overheard part of the telephone conservation, realized I was on the run again, and swung into action. She was uncanny, and that is why one of her nicknames was Radar, after the character in the M*A*S*H television series. Giving her a quick kiss for taking care of me the way she always did, I headed out the door into the evening’s rainy mist.
Pulling into a bamboo thicket where Joe had asked me to meet him, I was relieved to see him come out of the brush with nothing in his hands but a flashlight. At that point I still wasn’t sure who I had coupled up with and whether he could be trusted.
“Evening, Joe,” I said.
He just gave me a hard look and said, “Get going south on 4 Mile Road; there’s something down there I want to show you.”
From that rainy evening start, we worked together throughout that first winter, two odd ducks equally determi
ned to achieve our goals. One of my goals, on a personal note, centered around Joe’s left forearm. All across the bottom portion of that arm were terrible burn scars. After we had worked together for several weeks and I had gotten to know my stern taskmaster better, I found the courage to ask about the scars. He looked at me as if to say, What a dummy, and then pointed to the shotgun he now always carried when we worked together. He said the old Remington Model 11 shotgun was responsible for those burns. He called it Old Meat in the Pot. He said that when the market hunters put the extenders on their shotguns, which increased the shell capacity from three or five to sometimes as many as fifteen, they started burning their arms. He was quiet for a moment and then continued, explaining that when they went into the fields to blow up the ducks, they loaded their shotguns to their maximum shell capacities. As they began to shoot rapidly into the massed bunches of feeding ducks, the shotgun rose from the recoil of rapid repeated firings. The only way to hold the gun down so they could continue to deliver their shot-strings into the densest part of the flock was to throw their left forearms over the barrels and push them down. This worked fine until one approached shot number nine or ten. By that time the barrel was very hot, and leaving the arm over the barrel after that point would lead to burns. In the Sacramento Valley, repeated burns on the arms of many old-timers were considered their badge of courage. Conversely, apprehension of commercial-market hunters by the game warden was the warden’s badge of courage and a stain most hunters fought hard to keep from their kilts.