Poaching business healthy in Texas By MARK HANCOCK The golden retriever cocked his ears and raised his head, doing his best to refrain from exploding into the decoys. Out front, two mallard drakes and a hen whiffled through the bottom, picking an open spot in the tangle of flooded river birch and hickory to roost in for the night. Swinging through the lead “greenhead,” the man faked a shot; but didn’t fire; his limit of two wood ducks lay beside the tail-wagging dog. Besides, one of his greatest enjoyments was watching the northern mallards and wood ducks wing their way to roost in the river bottom maze after shooting hours. The dog’s ears perked again. But this time, it was to the sound of a “whoom!” echoing out a full 20 mi nutes past the legal shooting time. “Let’s go boy,” the man grum bled. “Better go call a warden. Those guys have gotten away with that crap for too long.” He piled his decoys, grabbed his gun and birds and waded off, cus sing the actions of the “roost” shoo ters. NEARBY, A RECENTLY- DAMMED creek provided a quality five-acre pond for ducks. But also enabled the poachers who built to overlimit almost every time they hunted. A severe winter had pushed high concentrations of waterfowl south, making the hunt ing fantastic and the poaching un believable. Every week the poachers dumped a 25-pound bag of corn into the shallow section of the pond, illegally “baiting” the ducks in the area. Waterfowl on bait, especially com, are similar to alcoholics — they always come back for more. This evening the birds were real ly moving and the clear sky pro vided extra light, so the men fired until total darkness stopped them. They didn’t care; the wardens had a tough job pinpointing their shots in the thick bottomlands and besides, half of the fun was the “game” of evading the law. They felt safe and light a lantern to clean 15 ducks, mostly wood ducks with three or four mallards mixed in the bag. They overlimited after breaking the “point” limit, based on the point-value system which assigns a certain point value to each species of legal duck. The system forces the hunter to identify flying ducks, allowing a lar ger bag limit to hunters select low- point ducks (teal, pintails, widgeons gadwalls, mallard drakes) and shun high-point ducks (wood ducks, mal lard hens, mergansers, redheads and canvasbacks). The rule to remember is this: You reach your limit when the last duck you kill reaches or breaks the 100 point limit. After reaching 100 points you’re through. Wood ducks are making a good comeback in Texas from low popu lation levels because of manage ment practices such as the point system. THIS STORY ILLUSTRATES three regulatory problems that occur in virtually every waterfowl zone in Texas: baiting, overlimiting and late shooting. But it is only part of a law enforcement problem that extends to all areas of wildlife and fisheries management. Wildlife law enforcement in cludes preventing legal violations, protecting beneficial game species, assuring the sporting public a “fair share” of available game and re quiring those who use the resource to “pay the bills.” Poachers, unlike law-abiding sportsmen, take what they want, when and where they want it. De pending on the area in which the arrest is made, fines vary as widely as the type of person arrested. Fines in the South Texas and Hill Country regions usually run to the maximum the law allows, Harold Oates, supervisor of inland game and fish for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s Law Enforce ment Division, said. But the mini mum fine is given in the majority of cases in the East Texas Piney Woods. “Of course there’s always the ex ception,” he said. “Trying to predict trends related to this problem is hard to do. Brazos County’s poaching problem is probably no better or worse than other areas of the state.” J.D. Robertson, a Brazos County game warden, says courts are le nient in a majority of cases in Bra zos County. STATE LAW CLASSIFIES game law violations as class “C” misdemeanors with a minimum fine of $25 and a maximum of $200 on each count. For example, two illeg ally-killed deer may cost an offen der anywhere from $50 to $400 de pending on the mood of the court in which the case is tried. The same fines would theoretically apply to all game species, including doves, quail, ducks and geese. “One deer poacher in South Texas was caught seven times in three counties last year,” Oates said. “He was fined a total of $1,400 and the fines varied from $50 to $600. He was fairly rich and prob ably did it as a hobby.” Although poaching cannot be classified except by method and common practices, poachers gen erally fall into three groups: the commercial poacher who sells meat, hide and heads in deer- related violations; the part-timer who overlimits because the hunting is great at a particular time, and the accidental poacher, who violates a game law due to ignorance. Oates said courts are harder in most cases on the commercial poacher than the part-time or accidental poacher. Sammy DeStefano, another Bra zos County game warden, said little commercial poaching takes takes place in Brazos County, although there have been isolated incidents. Commercial poaching of deer is probably most widespread in South Texas, where the largest percen tage of “trophy” deer racks occur. East Texas and the Hill Country has its share of respectable deer racks, but the “brush country” has long been known its monster bucks. Black marketers can get $150 to $1000 for an illegal trophy. Iron clad court cases are difficult to make. Taxidermists handling black market deer mounts have little to fear from current Texas laws. Photo by Mark Hancock Trophy whitetail mounts like this East Texas “mossy- back” could sell for $150 to $1000. An illegal mount can be stored easily under a registered false own er’s name and be sold to the in tended “recipient” after a short period of time. Hunters who pay $1500 per gun per year for a prime South Texas lease will shoot only a trophy and nothing else. Of course there are always those who couldn’t do it if they wanted to and will pay any price to have a record-book buck over their fireplace. THE PART-TIME VIOLATOR is the poacher most often caught. If a prime hunting opportunity presents itself to such a poacher, he usually doesn’t wony; he’s done it before and will again given the chance. The only thing separating the part-time opportunist from the com mercial is money. Part-timers over limit and give part of their kill to friends or relatives; a barbeque is a favorite disposal for illegal game and is also a good place to bragging about a “good” hunt. There are poachers in every county who actually feel they are outside the law. In many cases this essentially true because strong family ties dominate law enforce ment in many rural Texas counties. Like most traditions, the attitude of “we’ll take care of our own” is a way of life that isn’t easily broken. Particularly in East Texas, wardens and biologists often get little help enforcing wildlife regulations. Revision of current penalties for game law violations seems to be the only way to stop disregard for regulations. At least 11 western states are using confiscation laws to impound all weapons, vehicles and associ ated items with illegal game kills. In many areas it has proven to be the single most important way to re duce poaching. Poachers simply are willing to swap four-wheel-drive trucks, ex pensive deer rifles and an array of equipment for a few extra illegal deer, ducks or geese. Texas has no such laws, except for confiscation of illegal fishing equipment. Harold Oates said that the State Legislature hasn’t discussed the possibility of adding a confiscation clause to Texas’ game statutes. In the late 1960’s the Legislature re moved a clause demanding re vocation of hunting and fishing licenses following the conviction of a violator. Until legislators are prompted to introduce such a reform, the teeth in Texas’ game laws will be quite dull. Game wardens catch trio with illegal deer COLORADO CITY—it took some high speed chasing and some coaxing by Texas Parks and Wildlife Department game wardens before two Lubbock hunters came out of the woods in Mitchell County last week. Game Warden Ronnie Aston of Colorado City saw a group of poachers shoot a deer from a pickup with the aid of a spotlight. The spotlighters loaded the deer into their vehi cle and tried to escape as the wardens approached. Game Warden Rue Gambol of Snyder was called for assist ance in stopping the vehicle, but it reached a hunting camp first. The two men jumped from the pickup and ran into an ad joining pasture. No deer were found in the pickup, but the wardens saw fresh blood and deer hair. One Colorado City man was arrested at the scene while Game Wardens Dale Pearce of Sweetwater and Danny Tug- gle of Big Spring assisted in searching for the two men who had fled on foot. After a search, the two Lub bock men came out of the pas ture with two small deer they had carried into the dark. Further investigation by the officers revealed three freshly- killed quail in the camp in addi tion to the illegal deer. The three men were taken before a local judge and charged with illegal posses sion of deer and quail. The trio pleaded guilty to the charges and each was fined $435.50.