Rube Davenport had worked at the hatchery since back in late twenties and was a walking encyclopedia of historic lore. He explained that a few years earlier, one of the caretakers at the nearby Hearst Estate had trapped several mice in one of the residences that had been closed up for the winter. Evidently the caretaker had swept one of the mice into the McCloud River, which flowed immediately below the building. Suddenly, a very large trout rose to the surface and swallowed the mouse. Amused by what he had seen, the caretaker swept another mouse off the footbridge and into the river. Again the trout rose and swallowed the mouse. The caretaker then grabbed a fishing rod and baited his hook with the remaining mouse. He tossed it off of the bridge and the next thing he knew he had a three foot long Dolly Varden on the end of his line. Some of the other employees at this Northern California Hearst Castle ran to the caretaker’s aid. Upon landing the mammoth trout, they marveled at its unusual coloring—green with yellow spots.
The Castle’s maintenance foreman telephoned the Mount Shasta Hatchery to see if they had any interest in saving the fish for display. A fish planting truck was immediately dispatched to Hearst Castle to pick up the fish and transport it back to the hatchery.
This rare and beautiful fish had been on display at the hatchery ever since and may have been one of the last, if not the last of its kind. Unfortunately, no Dolly Varden trout have been seen in the McCloud River or any of its tributaries for many years, and the original strain is believed to be extinct.
A couple of calls had come in the day before, complaining about people on Fenders Ferry Road shooting at squirrels out the window of a small, dark-colored foreign car. As we walked back to the patrol truck, Warden Szody and I discussed whether or not to make the long trip across to Fenders Ferry.
“It’s three o’clock now,” said Szody. “If we go all the way across to Fenders Ferry it will be at least seven before we arrive. Then it’s another forty-five minutes out to the highway.”
“If those guys are somewhere ahead of us, they should be coming out this way in the next couple hours,” I replied. “Even if that group isn’t up here, we might run into a couple of bear hunters. Let’s do it.”
It was one of those cold, dreary days, socked in with high clouds from the north. A few drops sprinkled the windshield but that was about it. Leaving the McCloud River behind, Szody stepped on the gas and accelerated up the hill. I pointed out that the lake was awfully low for that time of year and we needed rain badly. “There used to be a little resort and a camping area right down there,” I said, pointing toward the river. “Our family came up here from Orland with my uncle and his family when I was a kid. Our dads went out in my uncle’s boat and trolled for trout all day while the kids fished off a dock that’s gone now. It rained so hard the day we left, we barely made it out in our old Oldsmobile.”
The road to Fenders Ferry climbed for the first mile or so, then leveled out and traversed the mountainside for several more miles before dropping into a number of canyons. When Szody and I had traveled about five miles, we came across a small brown sedan. It was headed in the opposite direction and pulled to a stop near our patrol truck. We recognized the car and its three occupants as individuals we had contacted before.
“I remember these guys,” said Szody, as we stepped out of the truck. Upon seeing us, the driver of the sedan turned off his motor, stepped out of the car and handed Warden Szody his hunting license. I walked to the passenger side of the car. The man sitting in the front passenger seat handed me his hunting license through the open window. Without my asking, the man in back did the same.
“Mr. Saechao, how are you today?” I asked. “Do you guys have any game in the car?”
“Two squirrels,” replied Saechao.
“Well let’s have a look,” I said.
The driver was already opening the trunk. These hunters must have been checked so many times that they knew the drill by heart. I reached inside the car and examined Saechao’s shotgun for a possible live round in the chamber. Warden Szody did the same with the driver’s shotgun and a .22 rifle in back. As Mr. Saechao had said, two gray squirrels lay in the trunk of the car. Neither Szody nor I sensed that anything was wrong, so we thanked the hunters for their time and sent them on their way.
Over the years, Warden Szody and I had checked thousands of hunters and fishermen—so many that we could usually sense a violation. Sometimes we were clued in by body language or nervousness; other times we detected a tiny feather on a car seat or a spot of blood on someone’s boot. “Even these guys are having a hard time finding squirrels,” said Szody, as we continued our patrol.
It was getting dark when we reached a wide spot in the road. An older model Plymouth sedan was parked at the canyon’s edge: the kind of car Warden Szody and I referred to as a “tuna boat”—a long gas-guzzler with enough horsepower to run a small locomotive. “What do we have here?” I asked. “That car doesn’t look familiar.”
We climbed out of the patrol rig and quietly closed our doors. Szody felt the hood of the suspicious vehicle and whispered to me that it was cold—the occupants had been gone for some time. The car had Washington license plates. Through the windows, we could see a few scattered cassette tapes and a pair of small-sized sandals. I spotted a discarded .22 cartridge box on the floorboard, behind the driver’s seat.
Just over the road bank was a frequently used foot trail leading into a heavily vegetated canyon. I suggested that we back off and wait for the hunters to come out. That late in the day, they could have anything—a couple of squirrels, a game bag full of mountain quail and song birds or possibly a closed-season deer. Szody and I formulated a plan: I would take my handheld portable radio and watch from above the road while he drove the patrol truck back down the mountain and waited for my call.
Well-versed in this scenario, Warden Szody and I suspected that the hunters in the canyon would send up a scout if they had anything illegal in their possession. If the coast was clear and the scout thought that no game wardens were around, he would signal the others to come up.
With binoculars and radio in hand, I walked back down the road about forty yards, climbed up the bank and hid behind a patch of buckbrush. Warden Szody turned his patrol rig around and drove at a crawl back down the mountain. When he had gone a little less than half a mile, he reversed direction and positioned his rig to face the suspect vehicle. Once situated and far enough from the car to escape detection, Szody radioed the sheriff’s dispatcher and ran a check on the Washington license plate. It came back registered to a man named Khamphouang Kahmphoukeo, out of Seattle, Washington.
While Szody waited for word from me, I remained perched on the bluff overlooking the road. It was almost dark when I noticed the silhouette of a male figure near the suspect vehicle. With the naked eye, it was difficult to tell if he was carrying anything. I focused my binoculars and whispered into the radio microphone, “There’s somebody at the car and he’s not carrying a gun.” The man walked out into the middle of the road, glanced in one direction, then turned and looked in the other. “Now he’s walking up the road away from me,” I whispered. “This has to be their scout.”
The scout walked up the hill until he faded into the darkness. “He’s still somewhere up the road, probably looking to see if we’re parked up around the bend.” Szody keyed his microphone twice, to acknowledge that he had heard my transmission.
I did not hear the scout walking back down the road until he was directly below me. Although it was now too dark to see clearly, I could make out what appeared to be a small, dark-haired man, wearing what looked like an army field jacket. He continued down the road and out of sight. Not certain how far down the road the scout had gone, I discontinued radio traffic for fear of being overheard.
These guys are really being careful, I thought.
About five minutes later, the man walked by me again and headed back up the road, in the direction of the suspect vehicle.
Suddenly, I heard a male voice shouting into
the canyon. Although I could not understand the foreign language he was speaking, I suspected that the man was telling his hunting partners, “Come on up, the coast is clear.”
“He just called his buddies to come up,” I whispered. Dave keyed his mic twice. As I watched the scout pop the trunk of the car, another man appeared on the scene, carrying two long guns and what looked like a backpack. “There’s two of ’em standing next to the trunk of the car,” I whispered. “They just put everything in the trunk, but they left the lid up. Let’s make sure there isn’t someone else still down there before you come up.” I continued my surveillance as both men climbed into the front seat—the trunk still open. “They’re just sitting in the car. It looks like they’re still waiting for somebody.”
With my radio volume turned down, I could barely hear two quick squelches, as Szody keyed his mic. About five minutes went by before a third subject appeared near the trunk of the car. Focusing my binoculars against the night sky, I was able to identify the silhouettes of another long gun and two more backpacks. The third man placed the backpacks and his gun inside the trunk and slammed the lid shut. He climbed into the backseat and I heard the motor start. “Come on up, they’re getting ready to leave!” I said, no longer concerned about the suspects hearing me over the sound of their car engine.
The car was in the process of turning around when I heard the roar of another engine headed up the mountainside. Within seconds, Warden Szody was bearing down on the suspects with his red spotlight in full view. When he was ten yards from the vehicle, Szody turned on his overhead spotlight, lighting up everything within fifty feet. The Plymouth sedan was caught broadside, in the middle of the road, with its front end pointed toward the mountain and its rear end about five feet from the edge of the canyon.
“They’re not going anywhere!” I blurted, as I sprinted toward the action.
All three men were staring into the spotlight when I arrived. “Turn off your motor and hand me the keys,” I shouted. The surprised driver apparently understood what I was saying. He turned off the ignition, rolled his window down and placed the keys in my waiting hand.
We ordered the suspects to exit the car one at a time. All three men were recent immigrants from Southeast Asia. The driver and the man in the backseat had Washington Driver’s Licenses, listing Seattle addresses. They also had California Resident Hunting Licenses, both with the same Redding address. The front seat passenger had a California Driver’s License and a California Resident Hunting License, both with the same Redding address that was written on the other two hunting licenses. This was a pretty clear indication of license fraud, but we would sort that out later. Based on the suspects’ suspicious activities over the last hour, we had more than enough probable cause to search the car for illegal game.
Szody kept an eye on everyone while I opened the trunk. Inside, I found three military-style green army backpacks, all stuffed with still-warm, boned out deer meat. The long guns, two .22 rifles and one twelve gauge shotgun, were all unloaded. The California resident was allowed to drive the suspect vehicle back to Redding, where he lived. The two men with Washington IDs were booked into Shasta County Jail. All of the weapons were seized into evidence and later forfeited.
The next day criminal complaints were filed, charging all three subjects with unlawful possession of deer during closed season. Although Warden Szody and I suspected that the two Washington residents had not been residing in California for the required six months to obtain resident hunting licenses, we did not file charges for that violation.
Had we continued our patrol, we would have eventually crossed Squaw Creek, another achingly beautiful trout stream with a rare blue tint to its crystal clear water—I never could figure out what caused that unique color—and Potem Creek, locally known for its magnificent seventy-foot water fall.
The actual Fenders Ferry, which in days gone by had provided transportation across the Pit River, had been replaced with a bridge a hundred years back. No longer a premier salmon and steelhead spawning stream, the Pit River’s once wild waters had been tamed by Shasta Dam and a series of smaller hydroelectric power dams further upstream.
Chapter Seventeen
The Unfortunate Tale of Lester Vail
Sometime during the summer of 1988, an anonymous caller gave the Redding Fish and Game office sketchy information about a man named Lester Vail, who had shot and killed a deer out of season. Vail lived at the bottom of a canyon, off the west end of Dog Creek Road, north of Shasta Lake.
When I walked into the regional office that morning, I was handed a small piece of notepaper providing nothing but the information above—no callback number. With little to go on, I asked Warden Merton Hatcher, who was in the office at the time, if he would like to take a ride—a long ride. Dog Creek Road was only twenty-five miles long, as the crow flies, but with countless side roads, steep canyons and endless switchbacks. This dusty, dirt road required almost an entire day to cross.
We took Hatcher’s patrol vehicle and headed north on Interstate 5 to the Dog Creek Road turnoff. During the summer months Dog Creek Road was exceptionally dusty, due to heavy logging-truck traffic. We had gone about five miles without seeing a truck, when I hollered “Stop! There’s something in the road.”
Hatcher stepped on the brakes just in time. I climbed out and walked to the front of the patrol vehicle. “Have you ever seen one of these?” I asked, as I reached down and picked up a two-foot long, multi-colored snake. “This is the first one I have ever come across in the wild.” I held up the beautiful little creature for Hatcher to see. “It’s a California mountain king snake.”
Hatcher had never seen one, but was quite impressed with its brilliant red, white and black coloring. “The herpers back in Southern California would give anything to get their hands on one of these little beauties,” I said. “I’m going to get him off the road so he doesn’t get run over by a logging truck.” I carried the snake far into the woods and watched it slither under a decomposing log where it would be safe, at least for the moment, from passing cars and trucks.
Every year vehicles take a heavy toll on wildlife. Far more deer are killed by automobiles than by legal deer hunters and poachers combined. Many of those collisions could be avoided if drivers would simply slow down at the sight of an animal beside the road.
Warden Hatcher and I continued our patrol, with me pointing out all the new logging roads that had been punched into the mountainside since my last trip across. “Look at this,” I complained, referring to a recent clear cut. “What a stinking mess. They trash the whole side of the mountain, rip out all the beneficial black oaks and plant thousands of these little pine trees.”
At the twelve-mile mark, we came to a side road leading south into a steep canyon. I pointed to a worn sheet of plywood nailed to a tree. Hand-painted on the plywood was the following barely literate warning:
PRIVAT PROPITY KEP OUT.
Neither Hatcher nor I had ever been down this segment of road. We climbed out of the patrol truck, walked to the road’s edge and peered over the side. The narrow switchback road disappeared into a forest of black oaks, Douglas-firs and madrones. Somewhere in the distance we could hear the faint sound of a dog barking.
“Sounds like somebody’s down there,” said Hatcher, eyeing a gray colored wasp’s nest that he had inadvertently parked under.
“Let’s go before we get stung,” I said.
Hatcher steered to the right and into the canyon. We traversed the canyon wall for two or three miles before reaching the bottom. Just beyond the last turn in the road we came to a sudden stop.
“What do we have here?” I said. “This guy must belong to somebody.”
Hatcher whistled. “That’s the biggest pig I’ve ever seen,” he said. “It must weigh a thousand pounds.”
Not wanting to alert the pig’s owner, Warden Hatcher and I sat and watched for at least twenty minutes before the giant hog finally decided that a plant growing at the edge of the road might be
good to eat. As I thanked our new friend for finally letting us pass, Warden Hatcher carefully maneuvered around the monstrous porker.
A quarter mile ahead was a small, gray, plaster-covered house—not really a house, by professional standards, but a shack slapped together with whatever building materials were available at the time. “Do you think this guy has a building permit?” I joked, as we stepped out of the truck.
Warden Hatcher and I tiptoed toward the front entrance. If this was the home of our deer poacher, we had no idea how he would react. Ever since the 1981 Claude Dallas incident in Idaho, when two game wardens were shot and killed, wildlife officers all over the United States had become extra careful when dealing with potentially dangerous individuals in isolated locations. The front door was wide open. Actually there was no door, just an entrance.
Hatcher and I were prepared to respond to any unusual movement but all we saw were three scrawny, mixed-breed dogs. Instead of barking at us, the uniformed intruders, the dogs seemed to be preoccupied with a pile of rib bones. “If I had to guess, I’d say those are deer ribs they’re chewing on,” said Hatcher. I picked up one of the bones and found easily identifiable deer hair and a small amount of fresh tissue still attached. I affirmed Warden Hatcher’s assumption with a silent nod. Hatcher stuck his head in the doorway and shouted, “Is anybody home?” No one answered.
A beat-up old truck up on blocks with the tires missing was parked at the east side of the house. Coated with dust and swallowed in dense vegetation, it clearly hadn’t been driven for some time. Lying on the hood was a fresh skull cap from a spike buck.
“Fresh blood,” I said, swatting away the flies. “I bet this is part of the deer we’re looking for.”
Badges, Bears, and Eagles Page 16