A Nice, Moonlit Ride You’ve probably heard all the jokes about cops and donuts.
Well, game wardens fall in the “cop” category, but I can’t say that donuts have ever really been a thing amongst wardens, probably because there aren’t a lot of donut shops in rural areas.
But what rural Texas lacks in donut shops is more than made up for by taco stands, and game wardens love tacos.
They say too much of a good thing can be bad for you, and tacos are no exception. Sometime around 2010, the Law Enforcement Division of Texas Parks and Wildlife took note of this and came up with a “physical agility test” to encourage wardens to lay off the tacos a bit in order to get fit. Good stuff, for sure.
But even before the mandatory tests, there were many game wardens who exercised regularly to stay in shape. Retired Game Warden Norman Anthony was one of those guys.
Back in the mid-to-late nineties, Norman had a mountain bike that he road about 15 miles a day. Ind eed, he was a lean, mean, pedaling (and sometimes taco-eating) machine.
Anyhow, prior to the opening of dove season one year back in his bike-riding days, Norman scouted around and found some heavily baited areas scattered over a large ranch.
It’s illegal to hunt migratory game birds over bait, and Norman figured he’d have some easy tickets to write once dove season started.
The only entrance to that ranch was monitored by a gate guard. And what Norman didn’t figure on once the season started, was that gate guard being a rat.
Every time Norman drove up, the gate guard would radio the hunters to let them know, and the hunters would stash their ill-gotten booty of birds and pack up and move to an area on the ranch that wasn’t baited before Norman had time to find them. You know, studies show that exercise isn’t just good for your body – it’s good for your mind, too. And riding a bike long distance allows for plenty of thinking time. Norman came up with a plan.
There was a nice caliche road near a neighboring rancher’s fence. Knowing everyone would be at camp for lunch, Norman parked his truck on the neighbor’s place around noon one day and hopped over the fence with his bike.
He put a small piece of plywood inside a burlap sack and tied it on to make a drag to cover his tracks as he pedaled several miles to one of the baited areas. He hid his bike in a clump of mesquite and found a hiding spot that afforded him a good view of the area.
It didn’t take long before the hunters showed up and started blasting away. After a good many birds hit the ground, one of the ranch hands gathered up everyone’s birds and drove away.
As luck would have it, the ranch hand drove right to Norman, and they were far enough away from the action that Norman stepped out and stopped him without anyone being the wiser. The ranch hand was WAY over limit.
Norman figured he’d give the rest of them some time, so he and the ranch hand chit-chatted for a bit before Norman had him drive the two of them down to the others. By then, all the hunters were over limit AND hunting over bait.
Norman wrote citations, confiscated birds, and told them to just head back to camp. It was getting dark by then, anyway.
When they had left, Norman hiked back to his bike, packed up the confiscated birds in the burlap sack and enjoyed a nice, moonlit ride back to his truck.
Jon Brauchle spent 29 years as a game warden.
