Bear Grease - Ep. 224: Render - Four Oklahoma Game Wardens and Black Market Caviar

Episode Date: June 19, 2024

Today on the Bear Grease Render, Clay Newcomb is joined by Brent Reaves, Misty Newcomb, and a posse of game wardens from the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation.  Cap. Hank Jenks, Lt. Joe Alexander, Austin Jackson, and Kody Moore bring some law and order and regale the Render Crew with stories of retired game warden Keith Green, poacher-turned-legitimate caviar producer, Billy Wishard, and the success of the Paddlefish Research Center. Connect with Clay and MeatEater Clay on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new field. Worldware Gear at firstlight.com. My name is Clay Newcomb, and this is a production of the Bear Grease podcast called the Bear Grease Render, where we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes of the actual Bear Grease podcast. Presented by FHF Gear, American Made, Purpose Built, Hunting and Fishing Gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. Welcome to the Bear Grease Render podcast.

Brent, what have we done to deserve such a noble crowd here? I don't know, man. With good effort, you get good results. Good effort gets good results. Yeah. Okay. It's good to see you, Brent. Thank you.

It's been a while. It has been. With anything you'd like to address the audience about just like, you know, just like where you've been, what you've been doing, that could be more important than being on the render. Well, I've been catching catfish. Yeah. Commercial fishing with my brother.

Commercial. In Arkansas River. Mm. And we've been doing pretty good. Yeah. In Arkansas, if you put your nets out, you got to check them every 48 hours during this time of year. Yeah. Because of water temperature and they get, fish get stressed and you don't want to lose the resource.

So we put them out, you've got to go get them. You know, in the wintertime, you can leave them out five, six, seven days. And it usually takes that long to catch a good mess of fish, but this time, no, you got to go. So that's what happened. I've been missing a couple. And Cody's in my chair. So there's that. The audience needs to know that.

If I sound a little off, I'm out of position. You're out of the chair. He didn't offer it. He told me to stay away. Well, we've got to come back to the commercial fishing, but let's introduce our, let's introduce our guests. We have four employees of the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife with us. all happen to be game wardens. Austin,

why don't you just introduce yourself? Tell me where you work and how long have you been with the department, stuff like that. My name's Austin Jackson. I'm the Craig Kenney Game Warden. I've been employed with Oklahoma Department of Wildlife since 2015.

Okay. So Austin was the guy that contacted me that said, hey, you need to do a podcast I was wondering how you got through. Keith Green and just this paddle fish, the whole paddlefish story. Awesome. And man, you don't know how many people do that and it just never plays out.

Like there's a lot of great ideas. There's no limit to the amount of good ideas that people talk to me about. But there's got to be like 10 things that line up for it to work. And it worked. So thanks a ton. Good. For the tip, you know. But that's great.

Hank? Yes, sir. I'm Hank Jinks. I'm the actually the captain over kind of the northeast corner of Oklahoma over to around the Tulse area's 10 counties. I'll just throw it out. I've got kind of a weird history. I've spent 10 years as a game warden back and started in 92

and then left and went to the highway patrol and ended up flying helicopters for them for most of my career. And then came back in about a year, and a half ago. Really? Yeah. So you're a helicopter pilot. Yes, sir.

You can catch them on foot in a car and a helicopter or whatever it takes. Yep. So you've, now, what kind of stuff would you have been doing in a helicopter for the state police? So we did a lot of weird stuff. The things you would probably think about, like man hunts and search and rescues, Oklahoma had a really robust traffic. We would fly. If you've ever seen the little white crosses on the side of the interstate,

they're known distances. So we would take airplanes out, usually an airplane's not helicopters on there. And we had chronographs in the cockpit, and we would measure, we would time people. Whatever, you know, it's a given. Radar detectors had no bearing on it. So we would time them from one point to the other point. From the air. From the air.

Just traffic. You can write tickets just as fast as you can get someone there. So then you have somebody on the ground. Yeah. set up, you know, it was a scheduled deal. We would have one, two, three troopers there. And, and we would, we would just have it, you know, it was kind of a scheduled deal. I always thought that was hype when I saw those signs. It's true. And it works. Speeds monitored by air. We would write on the interstate's 20, 30, 40 tickets, you know,

an hour were just normal. We did, we did that. We did a lot of, like, if the governor needed to ride somewhere and we were the ones tasked with that. And I did, I stayed true to my roots and worked with these guys a lot and did a lot of, you know, night hunt activities. The Highway Patrol literally didn't do a lot of that until I coaxed him in to doing that. And so, and I've actually worked some of these cases working, we would fly rivers and stuff at night looking for these poachers back when they were really hot and heavy or kind of, kind of when it was in its heyday.

Yeah. Yeah. Wow, that's really neat. Really neat. Lieutenant Joe. Yeah, so I'm Joe Alexander. I'm a gay morden supervisor up in northeast Oklahoma. All the northern counties are kind of my, my counties. And I represent these fellows here in the room. And, you know, I've been doing that since 2006. And spent a little time in the police department before that. Like my good friend, Brent here. But we can't talk about that. There's some secret information being traded between Joe and Brent earlier that I've not been able to get.

Man, we're like Masons. We got signs going over here than nobody even knows. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for being here. Yes, sir. I'm Cody Moore. I've been with the Wildlife Department since 2008.

I was actually in fish division for two years as the paddlefish biologist for Oklahoma. and I've been in law enforcement since 2010. Okay. And I'm in prior, which is 45 minutes north and east to Tulsa. Mm-hmm. Man, I got to say, I love Oklahoma. Oklahoma is, like, is different than Arkansas. It's really, it really is interesting.

It's hard to articulate the differences in states, but if you go into Mississippi, like, it's just different. You go into Oklahoma, it's just different. but I'm a big Oklahoma fan. Oklahoma feels like the West to me. Like when you're crossing to Oklahoma, you're actually kind of out of the south. You guys would...

Are you southerners? Yes. Yeah, I would say so for sure. Oklahoma's unique because it's so different. The topography, you can... You know, you've got mountains in one part of it. You've got deserts in another part. You've got the Ozarks in one part of it.

You've got the southeast, which is, you know, know, rolling hills, beautiful country, then you get into some swampy country once you get down in McCurton County and stuff. So it's, you know, we really got it all. You know, you're right on the, the eco tone between the eastern deciduous forest and the great plains. You know, I mean, it's like you get like probably 50 miles like pure eastern deciduous forest or maybe more. Yes. Yeah. Is that about right? Yeah. And you kind of get like west of Tulsa and it really starts to flatten out and kind of natural. And kind of natural. have less trees. I mean, is that about right?

It's almost like it's kind of a hub with those ecosystems too, because I never had really thought about it. But like you were saying, like in the northeast corner, you know, you have oak hickory and you get into cherry trees, not like they have in Pennsylvania. And you go northeast for 10 states, and it looks almost just like that. And then you get in the southeast corner and you have the delta that, you know, you take off and it stays like that for several. You get out west and you get into that prairie and you take off west and go across 10. states and they're not 10 but you know and it it just kind of it all starts right in Oklahoma all of those different yeah yeah yeah football teams aren't any good but uh but we're about to find out says the guy from Arkansas and like we had won a game in like four

years uh yeah let's not talk about that um no it's so great to have you guys truly is I got I got to tell the story Brent that I told all these guys before we start you're going to introduce everybody in the room I'm so sorry I didn't think that he would letter talk. Yes. This is an ongoing song. I should have listed. Chapter 98. Hello.

I walked in today and there was Brent, who I haven't seen in a while, and a room full of game wardens. And I thought, the sting operation is up. Goodbye, Clay. I'm not sure what Clay did. And I don't think he did it on purpose. But Brent's undercover work has finally come to fruition. And them trading secrets isn't helping it. Operation pour out the grease is underway.

You know, it actually, this is not a joke. I kind of thought Brent was undercover for a while. I truly did. Because I was in a period of time when I was hype. I don't know why. Because really, I've just always been pretty straight-laced. Now, I'm not saying I have accidentally broken laws because I have. But it was in a period of time.

And I'm also going to tell about what I did when I crossed into Oklahoma. But I was like hyper paranoid about all this stuff. And Brent called me and he was just like, hey, I'd love to film you. And I was like, what is this guy? Why does he have so much time? Why is he so willing to help? Too lazy to work. I like to be outside.

No, but I got to tell the story that I already told you guys. So Misty wouldn't have heard it. When I first started baiting bears in Oklahoma, I was hunting in Arkansas as well, but crossing into Oklahoma, and there were different season dates. And actually, this would have happened before season, so I didn't have my hunting stuff with me. But I remember one time coming from Arkansas, stopping at the state line, hiding a gun in the woods. and then driving into Oklahoma because I was so paranoid to be in a different state, you know, out-of-state tags, having a gun in my truck, going to a bear bait, and I just didn't want to deal with it.

And so I hit a gun off in the woods, which sounds pretty suspicious. But I was just trying to be straight-laced. And then I called one of these guys' colleagues, and I told him, I was like, hey, I just want to be. I just want you to know what's going on. I'm bait, I'm hunting in Arkansas and Oklahoma, and there's different season dates. And when I go down there, I've got to go back and forth. And they were just like, it's fine. They act like it was no big deal.

I called the Arkansas guys, too. And they were like, why are you telling me this? It was like, no big deal, you know. It's a bigger deal to hide a gun in the woods and leave it unattended. I know, yeah, that was probably. Yeah, yeah, yeah, who knows. but uh well the uh man so you guys are like paddlefish paddelfish experts in terms of law enforcement you heard the you heard the podcast i'd kind of like

to just go around and just get your general impressions of of of you know obviously you know these stories but just uh kind of i don't know if you have any background on keith or or jeff that which those guys such great guys, just incredible guys, but what did you think about the podcast, Austin? I thought the episode was great. So a little bit of history, I moved into Craig County a couple of months

after I got hired and transferred up there. And that was Keith Green's old county. That's where he worked his whole entire career. And he'd been retired at that time. So day one, I get in the truck with Jeff Brown, who he was the captain at that time. and the first thing out of his mouth is welcome to District 1,

paddlefish is king. That's what you learn to work. And you did. That's what you had to do. That was primarily what we spent a lot of time on. So it's, I got to hear all the old war stories from Keith and Jeff. Me and Keith have became really good friends.

A super neat guy, very interesting. You described me to a T with him. with his big smile after every sentence. Yep, yep, yeah. That's, uh, I'd heard all the stories about Keith before I had moved up there. And I, I had never seen him, so I didn't know what to expect. I thought he was going to be about six, four, uh, probably a big beer belly with a dip of snuff in. Yeah.

And when I knocked on his door that first time and he opened it up, I had to look down to him. He's a little bitty scrawny guy. Yeah. But, I mean, he is wiry and he's a very good wrestling. he's extremely tough he's one of the toughest guys I've ever met yeah I believe that

now why do you say that like tough and like is it from his hunting because that's what I picked up quick Jeff gave us a little bit of a heads up he said man Keith is one of the best Elkhunners that you know

he says I know but meeting Keith within 10 minutes of talking to him and it's not because he was telling me all his accolades it's not like that

But, you know, I just, like, read this guy is a master just outdoorsman. Yeah, he's got nine bird dogs. So me and Austin have a joke that we really want to go elk hunting with him one of these days. And keep in mind, he's in his 70s. And I'm thinking we still have another 15 years before we can keep up with him. Yeah. And, hey, he's 69. He actually corrected me.

So, Mr. Keith, so sorry. Keith is 69. I said he was in his early 70s. But yeah, he's, he sounds like that. It'll be longer for you to keep up with me. Yeah, yeah. 16 year. Yeah, 16 years.

He's one of the hardest working guys I've ever been around. And, you know, Jeff, Joe, Hank, both can tell you that in every aspect of his life, he was like that. He was all the way in. He's going to do everything 110%. He did his game warden job that way. He did the paddlefish center that way. and I don't think anybody else could have done that paddlefish center and made it work the way you did.

I think the thing that stands out about him, and I've told him this, and that if you look at literally when he was working, and even now, you could say the name Keith Green in eastern Oklahoma, everybody knew it. All the poachers knew him. All of, you know, everybody.

And he has that, and it was because of his work ethic. And it's one of, of those things that I've told younger guys, I'm like, if when you retire, if you can have name recognition like Keith Green did, you know, and I'm sure he told you he has a brother that still is a game warden with us. Okay. And the Green boys, you know, that's what everybody referred to him as. But Keith was just, he's just that kind of guy that everybody knew him and, and not always in a good way. I mean, he caught lots of bad guys. And, and you go work with

him. You know, when I came on in 92, he was about two counties away, but I did every day I could go work with him. I would, and you would learn more in a day with him than you would with 10 game ones. Yeah. He was that kind of a guy. I appreciated the story that he told about his dad. You know, and it fits so well in with a lot of the stories that we've told here about, you know, he just said my dad, my dad was a poacher. And he clarified more. Some things we kind of had to take out just for time.

But his dad wasn't a bad guy. It was just the time period. But the fact that he said that was such an important piece of his career, was understanding that just because somebody breaks the game law, they're not a terrible person. And that theme, I mean, Keith, I never listened to a Bear Grays podcast, I'm sure. but that theme has been inside of so much stuff that we've done and not even on purpose like i've not set out to make that point to people it just feels like it comes up and inside the climate of today

like with like extreme polarization in every possible scenario it's like you're either good or you are terrible and it's like there's there's quite a bit of there's some gray area in there not not gray with the law not not not okay you're not okay to break the law that's not what i'm saying, but just in terms of, you know, him saying you can be a decent person and make a mistake. Yeah. But how that informed the way that he dealt with people, which I think is good for us to hear about you guys, because, I mean, a lot of times game wardens have a, I mean, whether they earned it or not, the reputation is there that, you know, any law enforcement is just out to just tack

people down to the ground, which is not true. I mean, I've not found that to be true in my life at all. Yeah, one of the unique phenomena that comes out sometimes in your podcast, like you were saying, is that when we start doing these investigations and they go for days on in, weeks on in, months on in, or maybe even a year, you know, you have a lot of time invested in these investigations. And you really get into the weeds with these people as far as their, you know, their habits, what they do, what they don't do. sometimes, you know, you're privy to a lot of information that's outside of the realm of wildlife. And you become, you know, after a while, you get a glimpse into their lives.

And you realize that they're the same as you and I, you know. They live their lives. It's just that they've made some choices along the way that has let them down this path that, you know, makes you, you know, have to come in contact with them. And it doesn't make them a bad person at all. If, in fact, anything, you're more drawn into the... them as a, you know, you, I know it sounds weird that you, you care for that person after a while because you've spent so much time investigating and working on the case. And, you know, in the end, after they've been adjudicated, it seems like, you know, you want to keep, and there's lots of

folks that I've come in contact with the past that have investigations and things like that. And still to this day, I consider them a friend, just the same way that Keith, you know, saw Billy was the same way. Yeah. And it's just, I think that's one phenomenon as far. And I think it's in all of the law enforcement. I don't think it's unique in game wouldn't work. That, you know, the more time you spend undercover or the more time you spend with someone or investigating someone, you know, you get a glimpse into that into their life. And I just, I think it's unique, you know.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls in building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called Prime. called prime cuts. Now I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go,

I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to.

I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut, because they're all three great cuts. Check out prime cuts at Phelps game calls.com. I think you'll be glad you did, and you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers

who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. So I hired on, I said I hired on into Fish Division, right? And talking about Keith, when I met him, he wasn't in Game Ward, and he was already moved over and he was running the paddlefish center. So I started February 1st of 2008, and the paddlefish, I knew nothing about, I'd seen paddlefish before.

But on February 15th of 2008 is when the paddlefish center opened. And they said, go to Miami and you're going to be up there for three months. And, I mean, we were there from daylight to dark every day. Keith, again, Austin said it, and you said it on the podcast last week, or I think Jeff Brown said, that that program would not have made it without Keith. He was 110%. I saw him wearing the same clothes day after day after day because like they said, nobody expected it to be like it was, right?

But during this time, I always wanted to be a game warden and be in law enforcement, and I'm hearing these rumors about Keith. And when you hear one or two rumors about a game warden or even any law enforcement, okay, that probably didn't happen that way. But when you hear 200 and you hear stories about Keith Green wearing a dress and a wig at the Miami a park because everybody knew him and he had to be undercover. Now, I heard that story. I wasn't there.

I can't speak to being there. But I did see him at the paddlefish center one day. Some guys come in. And I believe the story about the dress and the wig because he was in an apron and came out and got his gun belt on in an apron. Well, because he was back there making caviar and he writes guys a ticket in the parking lot. And so I have to believe that there's some truth to the dress and the wig thing for him

to be undercover. Is that, I mean, is that a true story? You believe that to be true? I know for a fact that he has worn wigs. I don't know about the dress part. I've seen wigs. I'd recognize Keith's smile anywhere. If he was dressed like a woman, I'd be Keith Green, don't you smile at me?

And he does have a smile. He smiled just like a possum ear to hear. Yeah. You know, to digress a little bit, I can remember going over to his house the first time, and he was still a game warden, and his dad was there. And he's one of the first guys I ever met that he's. He lived like this dream world that I wanted to be in. You know, I mean, there'd be a pile of conobare traps over here,

and there'd be 14 bird dogs running around. And he'd talk about going fishing in his pond that's literally right in his backyard, you know, that's just full of big fish. And he just, he's lived that life. And not just normal-sized elk. He's not just, I'm talking Boone and Crockett elk all over his house. Yeah. And he was just, I was just mesmerized.

I mean, I can remember literally sitting there right now, I can remember walking into his house for the first time and thinking, that's the kind of game more than I would be when I grew up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's hard to get a hold of. I call him all the time. And like he doesn't answer and he'll call me back.

Like, hey, Keith, what are you doing? Oh, I'm in New Mexico, turkey hunting. Or I called him after the podcast episode or the podcast aired. Yeah. I said, you know, hey, Keith, what did you think of the podcast? I thought you did a great job. He said, oh, I'm doing pretty good. I'm down here in Louisiana.

I just put a redfish in the cooler. He's all over all the time. He loves life. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Those guys are probably, he and his brother are some of the hardest working people you've ever seen. And it would be, I know it sounds weird that, you know, it's hard to keep up with them and we joke about that and all that.

But it's, it is the absolute truth. I mean, they will work circles around people. It's crazy how they're just, I would hate to say infatuated, but they're just, you know, they're 100, 110% like Austin. and said with whatever they're doing. And I've fished with Larry and them before, and it's, it just wears me out to be around them. But you have such a great time. But those guys are just so intense and they're, they're experts at their craft.

Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah. Well, it was, I just was with him for a couple hours, but everything you're saying just, it confirms what I felt, what I was. with him but yeah incredible guy um so are our Hank anything stand out to you in the podcast like uh yeah so one one thing that really stood out that I had never heard I was with them when we caught wishered that oh you were there yeah I was there oh man I was gonna ask well the crazy thing was though

my wife and I we were we driving we were driving down to a ranch last night let's and I kicked it on We started listening. She was just mesmerized. She had never heard. She knows all these players, but had never heard a lot of these stories. And I started listening to his story the first night. I didn't know about that. And I'm thinking, that is nothing like what happened.

Because I wasn't there for that night. And I'm thinking, there was like seven or eight of us. And so anyway, I realized when he said, I let him go. I'm like, okay. This has been 25 years ago or one of it. But yeah, you know, that was one of, that night I'll never forget it. And it was one of those nights where I really felt like I was being a game warden.

I mean, we met, it was kind of, I was called like at the last minute, not going to give you any details, meet us here. And we all drove down to, you literally had to drive through about two counties to get to the backside of that area where those guys had put in. And I can remember walking through the woods, there was, I would say, trying to remember six or seven guys maybe eight we were walking through the woods all camoed out the whole nine yards and thinking like keith said that that they weren't they would be taking out there later and we heard that that that undeniable sound of metal chain hitting a metal boat

is it dark yet oh yeah very so you know they're going to pull out in the dark well but the thought The thought was that they would not be putting in there. You know, Keith was talking about they thought they were putting in one place on the other side of the river, on the Wagner County side, and bringing out on what would be the east side of the river. It makes a big bend, but it's kind of north and south, but it's the east west part of the river. And we were on the east side and thinking that they would,

a truck was going to be coming in. So we were going to get all in position, watch the truck come in and unload the fish. They're unloading the boat when we got there. We can hear them unloading. And so Jeff and I were probably the youngest guys there. There was, there was. When would this have been?

95. 95, 96ish. Okay. And so we heard the boat take off to go run the nets. And so Jeff and I got tasked with basically hiking down the shore and trying to get a view of them. And we, and I don't know if it's something that they mentioned, but we think kind of what happened was there's, there's a long island that kind of a. that kind of obscures, if you were on the other side of the river,

you couldn't see. You know, it's a long island that's really close to the east shore. Okay. We think they come up into that area to process those fish. You know, they'd caught them wherever. Yeah.

And they'd come up into that area that protected, you know, if you were on the other shore, if a game warden was on there, looking over, you couldn't have seen anything. You just saw a boat disappear, and then, you know, 30 minutes later come out. And, uh,

we're watching them and I can't I was trying to remember last night if what I could remember my mind eye on what if I can you know I think Jeff may have had some we had binoculars and it was somewhat moonlit and you could you could tell kind of what they would they have had lights I don't remember CNN like probably not these guys just they just worked it in the dark and uh nets or were they snagging they were nets nits yes yes and uh and then it you know this whole deal may have taken us an hour and we're on communication with Keith and we tell them and they actually got back to the ramp before we could get back to before we could get there you know all the other guys were there

and we were having to hike waiting by their truck yeah so you had their truck you know they had them they were caught but that was kind of that was probably one of the first uh big captures you know there there was some other players and we we probably get to that as the day goes on but that was one of my first experiences. I'd been out in Western Oklahoma and had just gotten back to eastern Oklahoma and was getting re-entered. It was like a, I can remember it. I'll go to my group.

So I was going to ask if any of you guys knew Billy Wissard. Yeah. And so. I don't know him. So I worked with him at the paddlefish center. So like I say, I started the first year there and me wanted to be a game ward. And I set lots of days for hours. And he would explain.

and why they picked when they went, the conditions that they would wait on. I mean, the nights that they thought the game warden was going to be at home curled up next to the fire. He's telling you the backside. Oh, yeah. And matter of fact, it's kind of a funny deal. And I guess we can say this now,

when he knew I went to be a game warden the next time I saw him, he said, you know, I made two game wardens, game warden the year in Oklahoma. He said, for a price, I may go back to Netton and make you game warden. That's definitely he was telling you about it. The stuff he was telling you, Cody, I mean, you used that work? Absolutely, absolutely. You know, he talked about a real, because I don't know the boat.

I wasn't there. That was, heck, not to show Hank's age, but I think I was in elementary school when that happened. Thanks, Cody. But they were using. Hank couldn't be more than 35 years old. I don't know what you're talking about. They were using small boats. A lot of the times, he said they wouldn't even use a motor if they could help it.

If they could just paddle out there and he wanted a windy. cloudy night, sleet, hail, you know, the, the nastier it was, and the more time that they thought that a game warden was going to be at home by the fire was the day they would do that. It's funny to hear him and Keith sit there because Billy talked about a lot of nights that Keith caught him, but didn't know he caught him. What do you mean? Well, like, he talks about one night, he had a guy that was a lookout,

and Keith drove up, and there was a car backed into some weeds, and Billy was in the back seat of, I think it was a station wagon, but he was screening eggs in the back of that truck. Well, he said the headlights hit the car that he was in. And he had that lookout. And for whatever reason, he said that lookout was wearing like nice clothes. And Keith got out and talked to him for a second and said, are you here to meet a woman? And he said, yes, I am. He said, well, I'll leave you to your business.

And he got back in his truck and left, and Billy was screening eggs in the back of that car. Oh, wow. It was funny to hear Keith never knew that he had caught him that night but Billy's telling him those stories Wow What was Billy Wishard like Then let me give

Let me frame the question a little bit better Keith said Billy had like sold caviar in New York And then you hear that Billy was making a ton of money At first I just felt like I mean he was just like a, you know, for, I mean, this is a term of endearment to me, so I can say it just like a, like a dirt poor country boy, you know, but then it's like, well, shoot, if this guy had been doing this for years, making half a million dollars, like, maybe this guy's driving, like,

nice cars and no, no, I could take you to the house that he lived in and you would have never guessed it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's just a, just a good old boy. I mean, Shuttle Oklahoma, you know, yeah, he would remind you a little bit of Brent. Yeah, a little bit, not, you know. Sure, no, I don't know what you mean. Kind of got that criminal look. He doesn't. No, no, no.

No, he's just a good old boy, you know. Yeah, yeah. He did talk about when him and his wife went and met some caviar buyer, and I don't remember where it was at. It was a big city, New York City or Los Angeles, somewhere big, and they picked him up at the airport in a limousine and all this stuff, and he was like, country boy goes to the big city is the way he described it, you know. Yeah, yeah.

that that part of the story surprised me i didn't know anything about billy and uh the fact that he he came back to work for the department i mean it's such a rare story i wonder how many times something like that i mean maybe never it's like the crazy old movie you see where they the guy finally gets out of prison for being a safe cracker and then the government sends a helicopter in there to the outreaches of colorado to when he's out there trying to to fish. We need you. We got to have you.

Like in Rambo, Rambo Part 2. Yeah. When Rambo's in prison and Colonel Troutman goes back to get to get Rambo and says, you're the only one who can do it. You're the only guy. John, we need you. John's real.

But Billy's is a true story. Yeah. Yeah. That's wild. Because they did a, he said they interviewed folks nationwide. Yeah. And they got the one guy that lit the fuse on the whole thing. Yeah.

To work there. It's pretty cool. Joe, what stood out to you? Anything stand out to you in the podcast or just these are all stories you're pretty familiar with? Right. Yeah. No, it, I thought the podcast was great. And it, you know, it ended on kind of a cliffhanger.

I was like, man, I wish I could hear about 10 minutes more. I think this is getting really good. What did you want to hear? Well, I wanted to hear, you know, the rest of the story. Just like Russian snags. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Because it, it, I know how it went and I know, you know, you know, it's, there's a lot there. Well, this is a great place to tease the next episode. I've put a, before you were here, I told these guys that we couldn't talk about Russians. And we happen to have a jersey here that says Russia. Yeah. So they've all been, they've all been. That's our reminder.

Yeah. Yeah. A gentle. Hey, you guys are welcome to come back when Jeff comes in two weeks to do the render after Russian Snag. But, no, that's great. He talked about in the department there are a lot of skeptics. Were any of you one of the skeptics? So, and, you know, this is something I was thinking about last night,

and that's kind of a remembrance. When we went to Wichard's house, you got to remember that this was unheard of us getting all of these process eggs. I mean, I'm sure it had happened, but it had never happened to me. And obviously, I don't think it had happened to a lot of folks. And we had, you know, we had lieutenants out of a couple of different districts, and we're all standing. And I can remember being out in the yard at his house and looking at each other like, what are we going to do with these eggs now?

You know, it's like, do we try to find a buyer for the state? Do we, what do we do? And I truly, I, listen. in that podcast, I think there might have been, that might have been a catalyst, you know, a segue for Keith, and he's smarter than I am. He probably thought, you know, because we truly didn't know, are we going to, I mean, obviously we need to save him for evidence, evidentiary reasons, but it was like, do we, do we try to do something with them? Because, like, you're talking about on that first big bus. Yeah, the night we caught Richard. How many, how much? Oh, gosh, I don't

remember. It was a boatload. I mean. I would say three or four hundred pounds. I don't know. I don't remember. It was a bunch. A lot of eggs. And more at home? And more at home.

And I had that thought after you said that. If I remember, they were living in like a little mobile home at that time. Yeah. When we went to their house. I'm having to really reach back from that one. But it wasn't, you know, I don't remember it very well. Yeah. I didn't stand out in the yard.

You know, some of the commentary I got just in the last couple of the days, and I maybe could have clarified a little bit more that this was the first program in the country to do this. And now a bunch of states have adopted this. And if just if you hadn't listened to the area, don't remember what we're talking about is the people donating eggs and then the state game agency processes and sells the eggs basically on the global caviar market.

And at the time, Oklahoma was the first one to do that. And today, a lot of people are doing it. Is that right? No, Oklahoma wasn't the first to do it. They were the first to do it voluntarily. In Montana and North Dakota, they had a thousand fish limit, and it was the law that you had to bring your fish to the table and cut the eggs out of it. So I was wrong.

So there's a, and I don't know if I should, you may have to cut this out, but there was a Dr. Skarnakia from University of Idaho that was our consultant in Oklahoma to start that program. and he did it. He was up there in Montana and North Dakota working on their side. But below Lake Sakakawiya, I think is how you pronounce it. It's on the border of North Dakota and Montana. Below the dam, that's the only place in the entire state that you can snag a paddlefish the way I understand it.

And when the 1,000th fish hit the table, they sounded a siren. And even if you had a fish on, you had to release that fish. The season was over. But every fish that was caught there had to get. go to that table. And that's what Keith Green and Brent Gordon, the other paddlefish guy, they used that as kind of a model, but we were the first state to do it voluntarily. You didn't have to bring your fish to the center, but up there you did. The law said it had to be checked in at that center. So yes, we were the first to do it the way we did it, but we weren't really the first

to process eggs and sell them as a state agency. I understood. So why aren't they still doing that today and I didn't really get into it on this this podcast but so today that program is not is not going it ended a few years ago uh COVID happened and I know that that year they processed a lot fewer fish and if you look at the amount of data they got over what how many years was it 15 years that they did that there's enough data for the next hundred years it'll take them to analyze that truly They don't need the as the day. And the core mission of it was paddlefish research. Yeah, it wasn't money.

Right. No, no. It wasn't. Now, as a byproduct, it generated a lot of money. Sure. Sure. But the longer that program ran, the lower the historical prices of caviar went. And so, you know, it's a commodity just like corn or whatever, you know, if you think about it.

And so, you know, the fluctuation and the price of beef or the price of corn, well, the price of caviar. You know, it fluctuates as well. And over time, that has decreased. You know, when the program kicked off, caviar was like, you know, gold. I mean, it really was. But nowadays, you know, you can buy caviar a lot cheaper than you could 15 years ago. Do you guys like caviar? It's an acquired taste.

Really? I haven't acquired it. Yeah, acquired it. No. No. Well, it's not. Hey, Cody worked there. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I

collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls in building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record.

If you go listen to real turkey, out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelps game calls.com. I think you'll be glad you did, and you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting

action. Do you like it, Hank? Yeah, it's not, I mean, I don't crave it, but I don't mind it on a cracker. Can you understand why people go so crazy about it? No. You really don't? No. Am I going to be unimpressed when I have it?

Probably. It's like if you think of the fisciest fish you've ever eaten, that's what it's going to taste like. You're out. Misty's out. If you're not into fishy fish, you're not going to be able to be. Did you hear that guy from Cali's? California described it.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, when he described it, it's just like, wow. That's the way I described what a baked coon tastes like to somebody. Exactly same way. When they ask, I thought I could see myself in a little suit. The taste, terrois, a little terroa, a little minerality. You can taste the acres in it.

The earthiness. The earthiness. Yeah. Yeah, that's dirt, by the way. Now, you talk to all that soil. Yeah. You talk to Keith Green, and him and his brother. brother, they had to kick him out of the processing room a couple of times because they ate too much caviar.

And they say, well, it tastes like salty butter. Well, when I started, it was like $80 an ounce. Country crock and some salt is a whole lot cheaper than caviar. Yeah, Keith said he loved it. Yeah, those guys, they do, they enjoy it. And, you know, it's, like I said, it's acquired taste. And just like Cody said, it's, you know, it would remind you of salty butter, maybe with a hint of fischiness to it. I know several times they'll have it at when the processing center was up and going, you know,

they'd have digging terries and stuff come in and they would show off the paddlefish center and everything. And I'd just take a little, you know, piece of old square white bread and I'd take a big dollop and throw it on there and smear it on the white bread and eat that just like butter and bread. You know, it's that square white wonder bread right there probably cost $150, you know. But it, you know, it's just acquired taste. To me, it just tastes like butter. butter yeah it just has a real buttery uh soft consistency have you had other have you had sturgeon caviar i've had

other caviar i don't know if it was sturgeon and it seemed to be a lot saltier than this type of caviar yeah yeah so my brother and i eat it me and tim eat it what kind of caviar come out of a blue gill brim come out of oklahoma brought over state line no we was fishing down on the on the saline river almost got him we called uh i'm on my game bro yeah we called a big mess You can sell that stuff in Arkansas, you know. Commercial fisherman. I got a story to tell. Misty.

And this is recorded, right? We were cleaning fish on the bank of the river fish and fry them up. And it was spring of the year and boiling them big old blue gills. They had a bunch of eggs in them. And my brother said, you know what caviar is? And I said, yeah, fish eggs. He said, this stuff is expensive. He said, let's eat this.

I said, all right, we're going to eat it. So we pulled them out and throw it on the side. And then we got, we was frying fish. fish we was going to have that as a little appetizer before we got cooking the fish and the taters in there so we but he said how you fix them i said i don't know i guess they put meal on them and fry them that's the only i'd know to fix them so we we rolled them around in the corn meal probably still in the egg sack they were yeah they was fishing to come out though yeah times were tough we dropped them in there for our or to start our hors d'oeuvre cooking and them

rascals got to popping like a string of firecrackers it was hot grease cut coming out of there. We looked like we'd been attacked by yellow jackets when it was over with. Really? But there was enough to survive that we took a bite of them and it was not pleasant. Well, there's even fried. I mean, it just tastes like fried cornmeal, but it was a little mush in there. The texture is not to be a texture person. Yeah, they weren't exactly processed.

No, but you got to let me tell you, before y'all go to drop them in the hot grease, because I know it sounds so appetizing what I just described. I thought what you were, I thought it was going to work. safety glasses because there's some hot and some welding gloves yeah yeah

it's like cooking bacon naked yeah for real I can only assume cooking bacon naked that's going to be the next shirt that's that really

exactly may you will you send us one of them shirts yeah yeah cooking you can cut that part

that's funny that's funny well I've I've never had it um it seems like well Okay, this is my next question.

Are there, do you think there's people in Oklahoma that have, sometimes people see a trend and they just jump on it because it's a trend? Yeah. All of a sudden, I mean like me, like if I went paddle fishing today and caught a big female, like I would be wanting to process the eggs and I don't know, just try it. A lot of people in Oklahoma keeping their three pounds of eggs. Most of the people, and I can't speak for them that I see, are using it for Blue Cat Bate. Yeah.

Really? What are they doing? Put it in a panty hose or something? Yes. Yeah. That's exactly how they use it, yeah. Really? So they're not even, even after 20, 30 years.

As long as you don't leave the state, it's legal. You can use all of it for that? Up to 10 pounds. And you can't have the eggs of more than one fish. Okay. On the podcast, did we say it correctly that you can only have three pounds of process? And that's if it's removed from the membrane. Yeah, that's processed.

And that would be, I mean, you would have to have. that in like your freezer or I mean that would be like nobody's processing eggs on the like in the field you can process them you can screen them in the field like that yeah but you got to do something with them pretty quick explain to me what when you're talking about screening tell me how that works so imagine a screen similar to a screen door but it's a you know the mesh is different sizes tennis racket like you sifting that that sort of thing like that yeah it'd be like that but that membrane you've got a and it takes a special gentle touch because you can smell mash those eggs, you know.

And they screen that right through the, right through that screen, and the eggs come through the bottom. Basically, you're just removing that membrane that surrounds that sack of eggs. Okay. And the membrane, so there's a blood vessel that goes to every egg, and that's basically what you're removing from it, is pushing it through that screen and not hard. It takes some finesse. Austin has handed me a picture here, I guess, from the,

the field that he's taking. And it's like about the size of like small rabbit wire. It looks like hardware claw. But you would, you roll, you take them out of the membrane and then put the eggs on that. Push them through and then. You catch them in a bucket or something.

Yeah, you've got a bowl with water underneath there that you're catching them in. And then, you know, you have to use, if you're processing them, you have to use special salt that cannot have any chlorine in it. Some of the ones that use this stuff the most and process it,

that a lot of the best salt comes from Russia. The salt comes from Russia. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I can show you some pictures of it. Interesting. Then you got it,

I assume you keep it cold. You put it in the cool water. Right. So they basically, they'll drain them, you know, kind of like in a cheesecloth type deal if you want to do.

Is it different like when, and I'm sorry, I'm going to go on, no, that's good. What about, you know, you catch fish early in the year,

blue gill and catfish in your skin them and the eggs are real small and they just turn in yellow and they ain't got any blood or anything in them is it if you catch a paddlefish it's got row in it is it good from if you got him or is it better a certain later in the year i'd say november to i'd say november to the time they get ready to dump their eggs it's good okay um once it's kind of a funny deal and i don't know if keith talked about the the processor or not. When they really start spawning good, the females that would come in, they've coated those eggs with like a membrane. And if they were to that point where they had coated the eggs in a membrane and started to broadcast their eggs, once you salted them, they turned to milk. Something happens with that salt and whatever they were coating them with. If they were right at the point of spawning, they were not, you couldn't make them into caffeine. Oh, really? So, prior to that. So later, you could have one that. And I couldn't tell

what that time frame is. Yeah. But a day, maybe two days, when they were ready to do it, something happened to those eggs where as soon as you put salt to them, it just turned to like a gray, milky mess. Yeah. So do you guys have any good stories? You know, we just had this like kind of a little highlight on Billy Wissard.

And I know there's probably a bunch more. Any other unique stories of catching paddlefish guys? So you want me to tell the basketball story? Yeah, the basketball story is a good one. It's probably one of the most recent stories. This is a basketball family. You're speaking about to it. Basketball?

Okay. Yeah. Well, I think it was two paddlefish seasons ago. Is that right? It wasn't last year. It was two years ago. I'm just outworking and had some guides come in, and I'm checking them as they walk off the boat ramp.

And this little, I don't know how old he was, eight, nine, ten years old kid. As soon as I walk up to the family, there was nine of them, the kid immediately says, Sir, we know that we can't leave the state with eggs. Well, that's a clue. I hate kids. Yeah, we love them.

We love kids. They will snitch you out. So, you know, me, I find out that they were from another state, obviously, on the East Coast. And I realized that the only reason that little nine-year-old kid knew what was going on is because mom and dad had been talking about that the whole way here. Yeah. So we started checking into that. to them figuring out. We ended up figuring out where they were staying, which is a place up on Grand Lake of Resort. Well, that was probably an hour and a half from where I was at. So I called

Riley Wilman, one of our game wardens up there. And I said, hey, do you mind driving up there? And I'm trying to corroborate whether or not they are staying there or not. I said, just run up there. And if you see a white Dodge, duly pickup truck show up here in the next hour and a half, let me know. And then we'll get the cavalry and we'll show up. So did they, were they suspicious to you other than that? No, I don't know. No, no, no, no. Okay. So Riley goes up there and he gets in the resort and he decides there's a little cafe at the resort. He just goes and gets him some French fries.

And he's eating. Well, he sees the Dodge pull in and I told him, hang out there until I get there. And we're going to watch him and see what they're doing and all that. Well, there's some kids playing basketball in the resort at the basketball little parking lot. And Riley goes out there and starts playing basketball with him. That's a good undercover deal. You know, he's in plain close. Oh, he's in plain close.

He's playing basketball with him. And he said within five minutes, this little kid, I'm guessing it was the same little nine-year-old. He didn't know that. He just saw some kids out there playing basketball. And he says, well, do you guys like to fish? Oh, we love to fish. That's why we're here.

We've been paddle fishing. And me and my dad, we love caviar, and we have a bunch of it in our cabin. And so Riley has to go to the bathroom. whatever leaves and calls me on the phone. He says, dude, you're not going to believe what just happened. So we watched them all day. We watched them, you know, doing the process, screening eggs and all that. And then the next morning, we still watching them, waited on them. They loaded a brand new freezer. They bought it Lowe's in the back of that truck, plugged it in. And then they were leaving to leave the state. And I think 74 pounds. And they were all, we found out through

the process of that that they had told some people that if they could get back home with it, they could sell, then they had packaged it in one pound containers. They could sell that for $400 a pound. Where they were going back home. So you had to wait

until they'd cross the state line though? Well, you can't possess the eggs with the intent of leaving the state. So we didn't actually wait on them to cross the state, but a lot of time we wait on them to get they'll pass the last exit on the highway. Well, there's no way they could say they were going to get off before they leave the state and we stop them and do it that way.

Wow. So that answer is part of my question. It feels like sometimes stuff comes like in and out of vogue of even being something that people try to get away with. And I wondered if all the publicity around caviar eggs and being illegal and all this, because, you know, this has happened to a lot of other states too. You know, if people are still trying to get out of state with it. Nothing like it was. I started up there in 2011, and that was the tail end of it.

I'd say I got in on three or four years, nothing like these guys did. But I know we've talked to some guys, and obviously when I started to now, our regulations are a million times more strict than they were. And I asked a guy one time that used to when I started, we'd seen 10 times a year every year. And I hadn't seen him in five years. And I asked him, why aren't you here? And he was a Russian, you know, from Russia or one of the Russian-speaking countries. And he said, you guys made it too tough on us. So whatever we did worked, you know, a lot of them have figured out that it's just not worth their time because the laws of obviously changed.

Yeah. Interesting. That's a good story. Any other good paddlefish bus stories? We were in, when you were talking about crossing the state line. You know, during that time, it seems like that I can remember, there were about four or five names. Most of them were family names that we would deal with that were in the paddlefish trade, the caviar trade. But one guy actually, he was kind of a solo, and we got on his track when he was coming.

up Highway 59 between the little town Stilwell and Salisaw. There's a big hill, they call it the slide, and he had a camper load. The entire back of his truck was loaded with freshwater mussels.

And I think, you know, looking back, even before my time, I don't know much about it, but I think that was kind of almost like a segue into Yeah, muscle pickers. Yeah, muscle pickers. And we've gone, you know, the whole commercial end of it, you can't do it now, but they They were, so a trooper stopped him.

He had actually broke down. Trooper comes in, talks to him, and ends up getting the guy a record to get him to the top of the hill and lets him go on. But he calls the game warden in Sequoia County, like 2 o'clock in morning. He said, hey, this is kind of a weird deal. And so they end up finding the truck and stopped him when he crossed the state line probably at Fort Smith. And that was our, that's our first meeting with this guy. He was kind of a bad element. He ended up, he was, there were several run-ins with him.

One, but it kind of all culminated with, we knew he was paddle fishing. And he lived over in the Wagner area, and one of our undercover guys had gotten word that he was going to be coming, taking a big load of eggs out of state. And so we had, then it was kind of, the feds were more involved in it than, than they were on a lot of our stuff. But the undercover guy was following him in this old Bronco. And between Wagner and Silo Springs, he turned off and would take a dirt road like 15 times. We were on the phone.

And I was at setting at Silum Springs, like one of the first roads inside the state line in my Game Warden truck and waiting on him. And this game warden kept calling me. He's like, man, he's turned off again. I've lost him for a minute. And he would find him. And finally he got behind him about a mile out of Siloam, and he said he's coming. He's coming through. And I stopped him about a mile into Arkansas, and we finally got a pretty good prosecution on him that time.

And he, now, he had eggs. Oh, he had a whole truckload of processed eggs. Really? Yeah. We ended up processing. It was the only time I've ever arrested him by in Arkansas. So we processed him at the Silum Springs Police Department. They went down, they're like, what are you guys doing?

But yeah, it was, it was a memorable. Interesting. So the last part of that story, and I probably should have said this, when we stopped that truck, that little kid got out, the same little kid that had said, we can't take eggs out of state, and the same kid that played basketball, walked up, because me and Riley were still in plainclothes,

driving unmarked vehicles, walked up to Riley and looked at his dad and said, hey, that's the guy we played basketball with yesterday. Oh, no. So we're not sure. that kid made it back to where home was. You put it up for adoption. We're looking for him.

Free to a good home. Yeah. That was a long ride home for them. You got to love kids, though, because they're, you know, they're brutally honest. Yeah. You know, and sometimes it works out. Sometimes it doesn't for dad. Yeah, kids and ex-wives are a gold medal.

Yeah. I bet so. I bet so. That's wild. So where would this guy have been selling, like where are they selling eggs today? Do you think people just have little markets? Probably. They just like know people that.

You know, that's some of the stuff we deal with. They're like fish markets too and some of the bigger towns that we were constantly getting tips on that guys are going out and gathering up fish to take to these bigger cities, of bigger fish markets, and I'm sure there's still a somewhat of a market. If I remember at the time he was going, they had an informant who actually had told us that he was bringing him to him in like Tennessee or Kentucky. So that's how we knew that he was going to leave that day. And he left right on time, but it took three hours to drive, you know, 50 miles. Did he know he's being followed, do you think?

I think this guy was, I'll tell you, I'll give you a little glimpse into him. He did his homework. He actually, so we have two game wardens. I guess two game wardens in, one of them's retired in Sequoia County are brothers. And he, one of them was out of, in another district at the time. But he went by, he somehow found out that their mother worked at Love's, that Weber's Falls on I-40, went in and said that he was in Arkansas game warden and that he, I know these guys and started talking to their mother and getting information

about how they doing and, you know, where, where are they at now? and she, we finally pieced together that it was... Mama leaked some information. Mama leaked some information, but he's just that kind of guy. I mean, there was some criminal element, you know, and that's the thing I think that that makes this so much different is that, you know, I mean, you're always, we're always dealing with the things you think of as a game warden, whether it's a guy taking a little, you know, an extra deer or they're chasing a turkey.

But these were guys that were exploiting the resource. and some of them were involved in a lot of other stuff outside of. Yeah. If we really knew, you know, if they're picking up eggs and selling them illegally in four states over, they're probably. And in to all kinds of stuff. Yeah, they're not selling these eggs to Walmart. You know, they're, there's with each little culture, you know, there's, there's an Asian culture and there's a Eastern European culture. And these, these cultures of people are embedded.

you know, within these rural communities around the U.S. and there's these little mom-and-pop markets and things like that. Yeah. That you'll see that are very unique, you know, to that specific culture. And you would be amazed at what you could buy in some of those. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps Game Calls and building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called Prime Cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use.

I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts.

Check out prime cuts at Felps. I think you'll be glad you did. And you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. You saying that reminds me of gallbladder stuff with bears.

I used to get bear bait from an Asian guy that had a donut shop. And I was buying the donuts from, him and I was real I was never I never lied to him ever but I never really told him exactly what I was doing just bought donuts from him and one day he was like we kind of became buddies and he was like what are you doing with this stuff and I was like man I actually bear hunting and his eyes just lit up and he said he literally was like can you get me some some gall bladders and man I you got I was telling all y'all how paranoid I was I was just like How much they were. No. How much money you got, buddy? I was just like, stop!

But he had no idea. Like this guy, I guarantee you he would have, he probably would have bought anything I would have sold him and never even dreamt that it was illegal. Like, this guy probably didn't even know there were bears in America, you know? And in his culture, it was such something that was sought after and vowed. Absolutely. But to us, it's like this criminal ring.

That's interesting to me when you see how, and not to foreshadow too much into the Operation Russian Snag, but some of that was going on there too, I think. Yeah, that was something I didn't really realize when I became a game warden is how much interaction you had with different cultures. You know, we interact with like the Hmong culture, the Russian culture, the Hispanic culture. and it's a variety of people that we deal with on a day-to-day basis. And I have learned a ton about worldwide cultures, just doing this job. And that was something I never even dreamt that I would learn doing this job. It's super interesting to me. Hey, go ahead and tell me your story about, I told these guys, you know, we weren't going to talk about,

we weren't going to give away the punchline to all this stuff. But tell me about this Russian vet. The jacket? Yeah. So me and Cody were down at Masey Landing, which is a river access down there by prior. And we were watching paddle fishermen. It was paddlefish time. And we had a guy come up on a boat, and he had a, it was a small violation.

It wasn't what we were really after. It was something that we could give a verbal warning for and go on down the road. And so we did. He was very, very nice. We were nice to him. Interaction was done and we had left. Well, we were sitting over waiting on some other guys to come through and he approached our vehicle. And we stopped and talked to him, you know, hey man, what's up?

And he said, man, I just want to tell you like how thankful I am how you guys treated me. I said, well, you know, no big deal. You know, that's how we do it. And he said, no, you don't understand where I come from. They would have cut my hands off for a violation of the law. Like, well, we don't do that here in Oklahoma. Anymore. Yeah.

Yeah, we waited until the second violation. We've recently stopped doing that. So, but he said, no, I want to gift you this. And it was a Russia jacket. Yeah, that's interesting. And what was this jacket? He was a coach for one of their national teams. Wow.

So this was really meaningful to him. It was super cool. Cody, he's still mad at me about it because it was down in his county. Cody wanted it. I don't know why he picked him. You'd look good in that jacket. You'd look good in that jacket.

It's my size and everything. It doesn't even fit me, but it's great. Austin has a knack for that. So our patch changed four or five years ago from the one that you have there. Yeah, yeah. And so there's this old game warden patch that's triangle-shaped and it says Ranger. And I mean, they're like hens teeth. No one can get them.

There's just a few. There's like one on the wall at headquarters, and we've all seen them and just, you know, always wanted one. He's setting at a restaurant and an old man walks in in Vanita. At the Chinese restaurant. Yeah, Chinese restaurant and said, hey, an old game warden lived at my house and left a bunch of, you know, stuff up in the attic. He said, I was wondering if you want it. And Austin's like, heck yeah. So he brings him an Ike jacket, which is like our formal jacket.

and Austin brings it to a district meeting and it had had all kinds of old policy manuals and all kinds of neat stuff in it. But we're looking at it. I stick my hand in the inside coat pocket and I feel something in it and I can tell it's a patch. And I pull it out and it's a stack of those patches. Like how many where they're five? Yeah, four or five. Yeah. Very few people have that patch.

Before I showed it to him, before I showed him what I was. I said, I get one. He goes, what's in there? I said, I get one. He's like caviar. He was kind of like where he's at right now. We were guarding the door. He wasn't going to get out without giving at least us three ones.

Oh, that's good. Evaluation time's coming up. That's right. Yeah, it's right for the BMP. Oh, that's cool. That's cool. So what are today's most common paddlefish violations? Because it's becoming more and more popular,

more, am I right? Or maybe not more and more. It's, well, y'all tell me, maybe it's not. I think it stayed about the same. For me, I'm starting to see a little uptick the last couple of years than what it has been. Okay. My first years up in District 1, it was busy. We had a lot of paddlefish stuff going on, and it kind of slowly trickled down here after year.

Now, I'm talking about just like general participation and snagging. Is that what you're talking about? Yeah. Not necessarily illegal activity. And it was kind of tough because we had several years there where we had, what, 100,000-year floods. Yeah. And that made access to paddlefish extremely tough. We need water for paddlefish.

But not that much. But when it floods out the parking lot, they can't even get there. Yeah. So it kind of trickled down. Some of the most common violations we see is probably not tagging the fish after they catch it, not checking it in. So a paddlefish in the state of Oklahoma, once you harvest one, you've got to check it in like you would, a deer, turkey, or berry, anything like that. Yeah. And that's a common violation that we see.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's probably the most. Yeah. Just not checking. I mean, is it people that just don't know or is that people just being lazy or just? Probably both.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

In the sport fishing realm, it's really one of the funest things you can do in Oklahoma, you know, is to go paddle fishing. And like Cody said, you know, the water's got to be right. All the moon has to align just right for it to be good. But when it's good, it's great. And like there's certain areas like up around the city of Miami, which happens to be the paddlefish capital of the world, Miami, Oklahoma. They got a big banner there when you pull into town. Oh, yeah.

It's a big deal. There's a city park there. And for years, traditionally, for years, I mean, we're talking 25, 30 years, that was the place to catch a page. paddlefish. And when the flow is right, that's where they're lined up shoulder to shoulder, you know, just going at it as far as the snagging. It's the only place that I know of that has city ordinances based on paddlefish,

and it's, what is it, if they're younger than 12 years old, they have to wear a helmet and a life jacket. So if somebody backlash is on one side of the river, a kid doesn't get knocked out on the other side with the four ounce of weight. Yeah. And it's a city ordinance. year old from the east coast and put him out over it. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. His dad's encouraging. It's hard for me to imagine what it would look like underwater if there's that many fish. I mean, because it's like if you can line up, I don't know, 50 people, 30 people along ashore and they're just just. Yep. Yeah. I mean, it's a lot of fish.

So another aspect of this, not to get off course, but is that's becoming. coming super popular is live scoping for them. Yes. They'll chase one fish, you know, and, you know, you can tell a big, if it's a big sow and they'll, they'll, they'll go after. They call them sows? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Really.

What's a male called? A male. Just a male. Here's your son. Get out of my chair. They call it. They call it in your chair and any industry is. What is going on?

Welcome to my life. How do you, how do you feel about live scoping? So on a on a on a on a on a standpoint of most fishing I don't I mean obviously it's it it has changed the game on a personal level I don't have any issues with it I think it's I have one I'll be honest with it but for paddlefish better watch you for paddlefish you it's it's it's unbelievable these guys will go out it changes the game it changes the game because like in the wintertime when they disperse and there's there's just one here and one there, you know, they'll come up into different areas. And we're not chasing them on, you know, we're out in the lake.

And they'll, and I've done it. You can go out, you can get on one fish. And the only thing that you can watch that weight, you can watch it drop down when it gets to the depth the fish is at, you're stopping, you're reeling in, maintaining that depth. And then all you're having to worry about is if you're left or right. And if you've got a good enough guy, that most of them are not using them on the trolemot motor, because they're wanting to make little tiny changes and see if, okay, yeah, We lost the, lost the weight.

And, you know, and they can take, okay, pull right, pull right. And it's like taking it. That's why you're seeing so many world records broken. It's because they're targeting those big fish in the lakes. Well, we had one guide, caught three world records and like four months. Those fish that you mentioned. One guide. Sure enough.

Yeah. Yeah. Those guys in Keystone. Yeah. But, you know, those guys broke records, you know, it was almost like every month they were breaking a record. No, our friends up in, in Missouri. Missouri, where we turkey hunt. Clay, they do that snagging.

Jason Martin's in them. Oh, yeah. Well, we were going to go with them. Yeah. That one day. Yeah. Yeah. Man, you know, it's, we had a big discussion of several weeks ago on the meteor podcast about live scoping.

And it's, it feels to me like an argument when it comes to technology and increasing the catch, increasing the ability to harvest an animal, catch a fish. You kind of start chasing your tail when you talk about the ethics of it. Yeah. Because where do you stop? I mean, because you can talk about, I mean, just technology, any level of technology increases, increases your ability to take wildlife. And so it's like, where does that line stop? Because, you know, today it's live scopes. Well, what if we said you couldn't use a pickup truck to hunt or fish?

I mean, you got to do it on foot. Like, that's ethical, is that you leave from your house on foot. foot. I actually heard a guy make that argument one time, and I was like, that's a pretty good argument. I mean, you know, basically he was proven a point that, like, where is? And then, you know, you're really hunting with the aid of a motor vehicle every time, not by law, but you are. You're using it to access. I had a guy, a good friend of mine, T.L. Jones in East Tennessee, he's a big bear houndsman. They use hounds to hunt bears in East Tennessee. And he and I talk a lot about ethics of bear hunting with hounds and all this stuff.

And he's like, Clay, he said, well, he would say it way better than me. But basically he's like, a guy tells me that I can't go out of my house and that I'm lazy for raising bearhounds, 365 days a year. My family for the last three generations has done this. We dedicate our lives to it. And then he jumps in a pickup truck and drives 2,000 miles to go elk hunting. You know? And he's like, and you're telling me that I'm using some artificial.

beans to harvest level. Anything above him and something up and choking it to death with your bare hands is using technology. But live scope of paddlefish, that's pretty close to the line. I don't know. That's a all matter of opinion. Even on Cropy, you know,

we've got probably everybody in this room would argue that our best guide on Grand Lake and he's unbelievable. And he will tell you that if I could take 20 guys and could show them to live scope as good as I can, we could catch everybody. cropy on this league every single one of them but the problem is he he doesn't and most guys don't

you know most probably are idiots like me and just have it and kind of know how to use it and kind of don't and go once in a while but but it's definitely changed the game yeah i don't think we've seen whether and on paddlefish i think it's a different level it may be something we have to look at as really i mean i just on on a personal level i just not immediately but it's not been talked about but it's it is definitely on a different level of of the technology of using that technology. And what about them harvesting, being able to target these big ones? Is that good or bad? Because a lot of times in like big game management, like if you're able,

if you're taking out these older age males, you know, that's an animal that can be taken out without hurting the rest of this system. I don't know. With a, so paddlefish are broadcast spawners, right? We're going to have the female come lay her, eggs. We call those sows, Cody. Go ahead.

Sal's. It's the boars that make a little baby. There you. A little baby spoonbills, though. But then you have, you know, 20 males come by and broadcast over the top of them. If you're doing away with that female, because they're obviously bigger. There's no doubt when you look at a sow. Yeah.

There's no doubt. There's no way to differentiate on a live. And the guy that he's talking about, he can tell you that even in the depth of the winter, The coldest of the winter, you can go in some of these deeper holes on the upper end of Grand Lake. And you can see the female. She's twice as big as the males that are all surrounding her. They're waiting on her to go up upriver. And they're going to target that bigger fish.

Obviously, that's what everybody wants. Big fish, big buck, big bear, whatever. I don't know where we go. We are seeing some of those being caught, captured, pictures taken, and released. So that's true. I was going to ask, is there a catch and release culture at all? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Is most of the snagging, are the fish able to be released? They said, so they did a study in Oklahoma back a decade ago where they, I think they caught like 30 fish, put tags in them, snagged them, recorded the time that they took them to get them in and the stress level and the temperature and all that stuff. I think they caught 30. And then they went back like a month later to see how many of those made it. And I think, now don't quote me on this, I think 29 of them. of those had made it a month later. Pretty high percentage. I would have never thought that.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, the way they, the way they described, like, the leathery skin and cartilaginous, it feels like they're pretty durable. Yeah. Have you ever caught one? Never have. Really?

I've never laid my hands on one. We can fix that. Wow, that's where I was about to go. You cut me off. No, I would, for real, I would, I would love to go at some point. And that, that catch and release culture back whenever you were working, And you caught your first three, and they did that to keep people from targeting the females, right? Because you will have to wait through a bunch of males to get a female.

You had to keep the first three. And a bunch of those guys didn't want to keep them. They just wanted to go and catch them. And I wasn't around then, but they say that those guys would drive a mile down the road and dump all the fish in the bar ditch because they had to keep them. They couldn't throw them back. So they changed that where catch and release and bar blest hooks so that you're not tearing them up as bad to get the hook out of it. Oh, so you got a barblous hooks.

Yep. Okay. And that way, guys weren't going to dump them down the road a mile. They could at least throw them back in the river and they had a chance of making it. Yeah. Brent, have you ever caught a paddlefish? No, but I had one. Yeah? Have you sold some eggs across state lines, too?

None of that. None of the above. I've seen him try to throw it in there. We've been watching for him. What did you think of the dining experience? I didn't like it. I don't know. It's very chewy.

Oh, you ate a paddlefish. Yeah. Up in Illinois after you took it up there? No, this is. I was actually. In college. Good drive. And I run the radio on the weekends at the police department Warren.

There was a dispatcher. And we had a trustee there who was his parents. They come from a family commercial fisherman. And every Sunday they come over and visitation where they'd bring fish. And I was working on Sunday. And we had a fish fry to jail every Sunday. And while this fellow was in jail and they brought over some. Oh, this guy's in jail.

His family came. Yeah. And they'd have visitation on Sunday, but they asked me one day because I was running the show, man. I'm 19 years old. I'm the boss. They're like, can we fry fish out here in the parking lot? I said, you know what? You sure can.

If you got enough for me in there. So they'd bring it over and they'd fry fish. And they brought some of that over there. I didn't like it. And it was just fried up just like you'd fry catfish. It was just real rubbery. It's chewy. Have you all had it when it's pretty good?

It may be cooked some other wood. I've had it when it's edible. I'm not a big fan. You know, you can slice it up and fry it just like catfish and everything like that. It's not bad, hot out of the grease. Yeah. You do not want to eat it the next day. That's it for sure.

Super grease. Now, what fish do you want to eat the next day? Well, you know, I've eaten croppy the next day. Yeah, I guess it's all right. It's good. It's all right. They're like a swordfish is what I've had. I've only had swordfish one time, but you can cut them up and eat them like a steak.

They're not flaky like a croppy or something like that. And a lot of guys will smoke them or cook them. like a steak. How do you get it lit? He's got to get it real dry. Once you get the skin off of them, you can actually, they're really easy to skin. And then you've got this big chunk of fish in the middle. You know, the cartilaginous, there's no bones.

And you can just slice it like steaks. And I've seen guys smoke that, used it on smoker and stuff like that. And they say it's, yeah, and they say it's pretty good. They eat the plane. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Well, I watched them clean that sort of stuff. That was pretty cool.

Pulling that spinal cord. Yeah. A cord out of the tail. They made a ring around the tail. They had his head cut off and a ring around the tail and they twisted that tail. And then it just pulls right out. Yeah. It's pretty cool.

You might have a four-foot fish, but that thing might be eight-foot long when you pull it out. Yeah. Wow. Stretches out. Interesting. Well, guys, thank you so much for coming. Really appreciate it. Austin.

Thanks for tapping me into this story with all these. with all the connections and it's a pleasure to have you guys. Thank you for what you're doing. Thank you for your service to our wildlife resources and the people of Oklahoma. Sure enough. Misty, do you have anything you'd like to say?

Nothing? He's giving her a chance to talk. I thought he said he didn't let her talk around here. It's the end of the show. Oh, got it. He's got to live here once this is over with. He's got to make amends now. I'm not being forced to speak.

Oh, thanks for coming out to the house. It's good to see y'all. Thanks for sharing the story. It was a good one. Yeah. We appreciate the hospitality. We appreciate what you guys do for the outdoors. You shine a light on the countryway life, and we appreciate that.

Yeah. Well, stick around next week for Operation Russian Snag. Thank you, guys. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Clay. First Lights fieldwear collection is made for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends. Products built for early mornings, full days in real use.

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