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Speaker 1: Let me do the math here, forty eight hundred dollars

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Speaker 1: average sized female that you caught it be worth five

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Speaker 1: grand yep on bear grease. We've made a living telling

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Speaker 1: the gritty stories of rural America, of backwoodsmen and long hunters,

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Speaker 1: cowboys and Native American leaders, law men and outlaws. I

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Speaker 1: hate to admit it, boys, but I've completely turned the

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Speaker 1: helm of the ship to something bizarrely off topic on

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Speaker 1: this episode. Caviar salted fish eggs of certain species are

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Speaker 1: some of the most expensive per ounce food in the world.

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Speaker 1: They're a status symbol of wealth and luxury. But is

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Speaker 1: that really why I'm interested? Have I derailed us? Or

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Speaker 1: could this be a story where rural America collides with

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Speaker 1: a global caviar trade in a bizarre crime ring. I

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Speaker 1: guess you'll have to wait and see. But this story

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Speaker 1: from the heartland of Oklahoma is full of giant fish

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Speaker 1: net poachers, undercover agents, and a region turned upside down

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Speaker 1: by black market caviar. I really doubt that you're gonna

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Speaker 1: want to miss this one, if you can even believe

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Speaker 1: it at all.

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Speaker 2: All these wardens converged on them. We had chuck guns and.

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Speaker 1: It did you lead the chart you called the what'd

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Speaker 1: you say to them?

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Speaker 2: State?

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Speaker 1: Game warden state, that's not what you want to hear

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Speaker 1: in the in the dark anytime, is it not?

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Speaker 2: With a batch of eggs.

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Speaker 1: My name is Klay Nukem, and this is the Bear

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Speaker 1: Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search

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Speaker 1: for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the

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Speaker 1: story of Americans who live their lives close to the land.

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Speaker 1: Presented by f HF gear, American made, purpose built hunting

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Speaker 1: and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as

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Speaker 1: the places we explore. Phil We're gonna have to start

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Speaker 1: from the top. I think we just have to tell

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Speaker 1: them about Caviar. There's just not another starting point. Here

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Speaker 1: we go.

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Speaker 3: I'm Alan Morris at Sterling Caviar. We're just outside of Sacramento, California.

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Speaker 1: I'm assuming this is catching the average bear Grease listener

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Speaker 1: a little left guard Caviar, But I'll tell you this

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Speaker 1: is a foundational piece of understanding for this story.

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Speaker 3: The history of Caviar is generally thought of as based

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Speaker 3: around the Caspian Sea, where the beluga, the et cetera,

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Speaker 3: the sort of old world species live where folks were

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Speaker 3: catching it. At some point they realized, hey, if we

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Speaker 3: salt these eggs, they taste pretty good. And then at

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Speaker 3: a point in time it became fashionable in the imperial

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Speaker 3: courts of Europe, and that's when it kind of took

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Speaker 3: off with the rich set. But we know people who've

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Speaker 3: been in the business who grew up in that area say, oh, yeah,

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Speaker 3: we had when I was a little kid, we had

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Speaker 3: caviar for breakfast every day in Russia, and so that's

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Speaker 3: kind of where it started.

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Speaker 1: The Persians first called salted fish eggs kaviar, which means

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Speaker 1: cake of strength. Aristotle mentioned sturgeon caviar as being quote

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Speaker 1: heralded into banquets amongst trumpets and flowers unquote. He said

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Speaker 1: that three centuries before the birth of Christ. But it

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Speaker 1: really got its start as a widespread delicacy by the

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Speaker 1: sixteen hundreds, when the Russian Orthodox Church decided that even

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Speaker 1: though they required fasting from meat for as many as

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Speaker 1: two hundred days a year, caviar would be acceptable for

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Speaker 1: people to eat in lieu of meat. Russia was a

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Speaker 1: land rich with giant sturgeon filled rivers, and similar to

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Speaker 1: the ideas of Europeans around the American bison. In the

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Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, the supply of sturgeons seemed endless. Beluga an

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Speaker 1: etcetera sturgeon fish native to wider Europe, is the best

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Speaker 1: caviar in the world period. Beluga sturgeons sometimes only reproduce

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Speaker 1: every twenty five years, and after centuries of commercial pressure,

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Speaker 1: sturgeon are endangered in Europe, and today it's illegal to

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Speaker 1: sell beluga caviar in the United States. Who knew Russia

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Speaker 1: was that big into caviar, but why would we We'll

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Speaker 1: be back for the Russians to just put them aside

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Speaker 1: for now. In Middle America, eating caviar is about as

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Speaker 1: common as an albino emu. It's just not in the

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Speaker 1: cultural rolodex, but in the ultra wealthy part of American culture,

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Speaker 1: caviar is alive and well.

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Speaker 4: It's another jazzling Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.

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Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us.

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Speaker 3: I'm Robin Leach with those champagne wishes and caviadres.

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Speaker 1: Robin Leech hosted the television show Lifestyles of the Rich

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Speaker 1: and Famous from nineteen eighty four to nineteen eighty five,

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Speaker 1: and coin the phrase champagne wishes and caveat dreams. But

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Speaker 1: what's all the fuss about? Does this stuff really even

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Speaker 1: taste good?

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Speaker 3: Here's alan Caviar is a unique flavor and texture that

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Speaker 3: you don't get from any other product, any other food

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Speaker 3: in the world. So the experience. First, you put on

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Speaker 3: your tongue and sort of crush it against your palette.

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Speaker 3: And what you want to do is you're feeling those

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Speaker 3: individual beads and then as they pop, you'll get a rich,

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Speaker 3: buttery flavor and then a cascade of flavors. There's going

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Speaker 3: to be some bright accidity to it. I want some minerality.

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Speaker 3: I want a breath of the sea or a hint

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Speaker 3: of the sea, and also some earthiness. We call it merwar,

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Speaker 3: just like tear war and wine. You can taste that

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Speaker 3: it's something that came from the earth. And again, those

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Speaker 3: fats kind of let those flavors cascade. You know, you

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Speaker 3: swallow it, and you just got this fog left in

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Speaker 3: your head. As it is when you've tasted anything great,

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Speaker 3: it kind of leaves you a little bit dizzy.

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Speaker 1: I'm sitting in the police station in Vanita, Oklahoma. I've

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Speaker 1: not been arrested, but rather I've made arrangements to meet

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Speaker 1: someone here that probably knows more about caviar than anyone

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Speaker 1: in Oklahoma. He's traveled to Europe for seafood symposiums and

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Speaker 1: dealt in the global caviar trade. But why does this

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Speaker 1: sky live in Venida, a town of fifty one hundred

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Speaker 1: people in northeast Oklahoma. Venita has a handsome main street

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Speaker 1: and a good Chinese restaurant. This is flat country mixed

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Speaker 1: with thick forests and open grass pastures, good cattle country.

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Speaker 1: The landscape cradles big, slow moving rivers flowing out of

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Speaker 1: the Great Plains of Kansas to the north. All these

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Speaker 1: rivers are damned, creating incredibly fecunned lakes like Grand Keystone

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Speaker 1: and you fallow. Does this sound like caviar country? I

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Speaker 1: don't know. I'm meeting with retired Oklahoma game board and

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Speaker 1: Keith Green. He's in his early seventies, wiry, full of energy,

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Speaker 1: and grin's ear to ear. At the conclusion of each sentence,

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Speaker 1: will learn that Keith is a bona fide hero of

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Speaker 1: Oklahoma conservation, a pioneer. I assume this is rare for

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Speaker 1: a caviar expert, but in his prime he was as

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Speaker 1: good an Elk bowhunter as existed. He owns a string

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Speaker 1: of pack mules and nine bird dogs. Today he does

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Speaker 1: Keith is also an accomplished fisherman.

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Speaker 2: My dad when we were in the late sixties, he

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Speaker 2: was loading us up with his boat and go into

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Speaker 2: Mexico to all the old Mexico lakes bass fishaw And

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Speaker 2: in seventy three I won the Oklahoma State Basque Championship

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Speaker 2: and beat Jimmy Houston. He was second. I was I

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Speaker 2: was eighteen seventeen or eighteen, so we bass fish.

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Speaker 1: Keith is one of those guys when you shake his hand,

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Speaker 1: you know you're talking to a legend. But he's got

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Speaker 1: some foundational information on global trade he needs to share.

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Speaker 1: This is where we'll start to stitch the lifestyles of

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Speaker 1: the rich and famous with Oklahoma Rednecks. This is part

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Speaker 1: two of the foundation of our story. Learning about caviar

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Speaker 1: was part one.

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Speaker 2: In eighty seven. It was an Iranian embargo with the

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Speaker 2: United States, and ninety percent of our caviar came from Iran,

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Speaker 2: our black caviar, so our caviar quit, we lost it,

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Speaker 2: So there was a they started looking for a substitute.

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Speaker 1: And caviar coming into the United States yes, was gone,

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Speaker 1: was gone. So the people that were wanting caviar was

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Speaker 1: looking for another.

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Speaker 2: Source absolutely, and come to find out, paddlefish had dark

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Speaker 2: black eggs, their kin to a sturgeon and their cartilage.

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Speaker 2: Fish and paddlefish caviar is number three in the world

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Speaker 2: as caviar three to four. It can be really, really good,

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Speaker 2: and there's some pluses to it. Sturgeon caviar you can't

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Speaker 2: freeze it. Battlefish caviar you can freeze, and you can

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Speaker 2: also pasteurize.

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Speaker 1: Now some of the pieces are starting to take shape.

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Speaker 1: Caviar is extremely sought after in some circles. The supply

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Speaker 1: chain was cut off by Ronald Reagan's embargo, but lo

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Speaker 1: and behold. Keith mentioned an American species, the paddlefish polydn spathula,

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Speaker 1: also known as the spoon bill, and it has black

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Speaker 1: row and is one of the top caviars in the world.

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Speaker 1: Who knew The truth is that very few people in

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Speaker 1: Oklahoma knew anything about it nor cared anything about caviar.

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Speaker 1: Fish eggs were usually left on the bank. High demand

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Speaker 1: and Low's supply had begun to create the backdrop for

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Speaker 1: some serious illegal activity for our final foundational piece to

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Speaker 1: begin to tell the story, we need to understand what

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Speaker 1: a paddlefish is, where they live, and how they've survived

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Speaker 1: on this continent since before t Rex was leaving tracks.

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Speaker 1: This is retired Oklahoma game Warden Jeff Brown, also an

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Speaker 1: incredible man. He'll be a huge player in this story

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Speaker 1: later on.

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Speaker 4: Paddlefish are a very unique fish and that they're prehistoric,

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Speaker 4: the cardilaginous. They don't have any hard bones in them.

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Speaker 4: The only scaleful structure is their rostrum, which is a

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Speaker 4: long snout. Other than that, they have a cartilage encased

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Speaker 4: final cord that runs the length through their body. And

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Speaker 4: other than that, there's no bone. Town They have a

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Speaker 4: thick hide. They have a really big area or a

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Speaker 4: streak that runs from them of red meat. They grow

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Speaker 4: to be real big world record came out of Oklahoma

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Speaker 4: for several years, but it just recently was broken in

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Speaker 4: Missouri just this spring, I think.

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Speaker 1: On March seventeenth, twenty twenty four, first time paddle fisherman

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Speaker 1: Chad Williams broke the world record by snagging a one

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Speaker 1: hundred and sixty four pounds thirteen ounce paddlefish in Missouri's

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Speaker 1: Lake of the Ozarks. The former world record was one

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Speaker 1: hundred and sixty four pounds even and came out of

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Speaker 1: Keystone Lake near Tulsa, Oklahoma. The age of natural systems

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Speaker 1: of the Earth is bizarre to comprehend from inside the

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Speaker 1: cockpit of the small sliver of time that humans live.

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Speaker 1: And according to the fossil record, ninety nine percent of

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Speaker 1: this species that have ever existed are now extinct. So

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Speaker 1: when a species outlast is peers and critics, it's worth

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Speaker 1: taking a note and tipping your hat. Here is Oklahoma

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Speaker 1: Department of Wildlife Fisheries biologist Brandon Brown.

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Speaker 5: You know, paddlefish are such a bizarre looking fish. They're primitive.

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Speaker 5: They are an ancient species. They were around, or at

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Speaker 5: least the relatives were around well before the dinosaurs. Probably

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Speaker 5: the most bizarre thing about them is their rostrum, their bill,

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Speaker 5: and a lot of people used to think that they

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Speaker 5: use that to stir up the mud and then kind

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Speaker 5: of eat what they stir up. But the fact is

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Speaker 5: that's really a specialized appendage. You can really think of

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Speaker 5: that as a plankton seeking antenna. Work done at Missouri

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Speaker 5: years ago found that within juvenile paddlefish, they put them

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Speaker 5: in a round tank, but they glued basically plankton to

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Speaker 5: the end of wires, and those little paddle fish could

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Speaker 5: basically detect the electrical field of one individual plankton. So

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Speaker 5: they're amazing critters. You know, another cartilaginous fish is a shark,

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Speaker 5: and paddlefish are related to sharks. And you know, if

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Speaker 5: you ever see a paddlefish with this rostrum cut off,

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Speaker 5: really it looks basically like a basking shark.

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Speaker 1: That's pretty wild. But here's where paddlefish start to stand

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Speaker 1: out as caviar producing machines.

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Speaker 5: One of the really neat things about paddlefish, especially when

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Speaker 5: we start talking about their life cycle and reproduction and

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Speaker 5: especially their management, is when you clean a bass or

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Speaker 5: a crappie, you know, you know, they have eggs in them,

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Speaker 5: and it's maybe a handful of eggs. But when you

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Speaker 5: clean a mature female paddlefish, you might get fifteen or

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Speaker 5: twenty pounds of eggs out of her. So she's producing

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Speaker 5: about a third of her body weight sometimes into reproduction.

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Speaker 5: That is a huge metal bolic investment to think every year,

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Speaker 5: every other year, whatever happens to be, that she's literally

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Speaker 5: producing a third of her body weight into eggs.

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Speaker 1: Culsta VARs of corn with big ears make for big yields,

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Speaker 1: and giant fish with huge volumes of black eggs create

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Speaker 1: incredible caviar.

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Speaker 4: They're long lived. They'll live maybe to fifty years old

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Speaker 4: or so. They don't reproduce till they're anywhere between six

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Speaker 4: and twelve years old, and they only reproduce when the

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Speaker 4: conditions are just right. So we'll go years maybe without

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Speaker 4: a reproduction. So we have what's called what we call

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Speaker 4: and referred to as as your classes. We'll have a

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Speaker 4: pretty good good idea when the fish spond, and you

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Speaker 4: can mark that on a calendar. In about six seven years,

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Speaker 4: we'll have a good fishery. But then at the same time,

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Speaker 4: all those fish that people are kitching are from one

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Speaker 4: year class, and so they can wipe that year class out.

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Speaker 1: Here's Brandon on paddlefish spawning.

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Speaker 5: So we consider paddlefish episodic spawners, meaning they spawn in

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Speaker 5: these big boom or bust episodes. It's not unusual to

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Speaker 5: see at eight or even a ten or fifteen year

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Speaker 5: gap in between those spawning events. Significant spawning events episodic spawners.

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Speaker 1: That's an insightful biological descriptor.

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Speaker 5: I like that paddlefish are native to North America. They're

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Speaker 5: native to the Mississippi River system. Oklahoma is actually on

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Speaker 5: the western fringe of the range. We're not in the

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Speaker 5: heart of a paddlefish country, so to speak. They once

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Speaker 5: range from Louisiana all the way up into Canada in

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Speaker 5: some places. But over the last fifty years or so,

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Speaker 5: paddlefish have declined significantly in the United States, both in

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Speaker 5: range and number, but Oklahoma has been the exception to that.

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Speaker 5: Our paddlefish are doing well. They're doing very well. We

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Speaker 5: almost certainly have more paddlefish today than we did fifty

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Speaker 5: years ago. They're expanding both in the range within the

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Speaker 5: state and also in population size and in numbers. Oklahoma

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Speaker 5: really won the paddlefish lottery, so to speak, and it

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Speaker 5: wasn't anything that we did as a state or as

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Speaker 5: an agency. We just got really lucky. We've got enough

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Speaker 5: river miles between those dams that those fish can move

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Speaker 5: and go and get a spawn off. And we have

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Speaker 5: very fertile, very fertile watersheds. You know, if we look

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Speaker 5: at that grand system that water's coming out of Kansas, well,

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Speaker 5: there's probably not anywhere in the US more fertile, you know, than.

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Speaker 1: Kansas paddlefish in general are not doing good, but in

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Speaker 1: Oklahoma they're doing very well. This is really where the

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Speaker 1: human side of the story begins. Here's Jeff Brown tell

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Speaker 1: me about the caviar.

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Speaker 4: The caviar is, it makes a high grade caviar. The

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Speaker 4: row from the paddlefish. There's a window of time there.

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Speaker 4: The eggs in the paddlefish are viable as far as

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Speaker 4: caviar goes all the way back into November December. You

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Speaker 4: know that they don't spawn until March April, but the

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Speaker 4: row is you can make caviar out of it earlier

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Speaker 4: than what they spawn. The beluga sturgeon population in the Russia,

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Speaker 4: the Old Soviet Union collapsed from overfishing, and that caviar

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Speaker 4: market went away for the most part. And that is

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Speaker 4: one of the reasons, if not the biggest reason, why

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Speaker 4: so much pressure was put on paddlefish caviar. And I

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Speaker 4: looked online last night of what paddlefish caviar was selling

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Speaker 4: for and it's about a dollar a gram, so roughly,

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Speaker 4: depending on where you buy it, from twenty five to

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Speaker 4: thirty five dollars an ount, So that makes one fish

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Speaker 4: worth potentially quite a bit of money. It wasn't uncommon

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Speaker 4: for a fish to produce ten pounds of caviar.

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Speaker 1: Let me do the math here, forty eight hundred dollars

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Speaker 1: and yeah, an average, average sized female that you caught

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Speaker 1: that had ten pounds of caviar would be worth five

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Speaker 1: grand yep.

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Speaker 2: Wow. And that's just the caviar.

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Speaker 4: And some people would sell the meat on top of that,

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Speaker 4: you know, for another couple of dollars a pound, So

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Speaker 4: a really big fish could potentially be worth you know,

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Speaker 4: five six thousand dollars.

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Speaker 1: That's a big money for a fish. And coming from

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Speaker 1: the hunting world, it's hard to imagine the meat or

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Speaker 1: consumable products of an animal we hunt being worth that much.

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Speaker 1: We also learned another influence on the global market was

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Speaker 1: the depletion of Russian sturgeon fisheries additional to the trade

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Speaker 1: embargo with Iran in the nineteen eighties. So here's what

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Speaker 1: we know. Caviar is in demand glow, but most Oklahoma's

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Speaker 1: I know would starve before they'd eat it, So there

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Speaker 1: was an untapped resource, kind of like when the Beverly

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Speaker 1: Hillbillies discovered oil on their land. It was worthless to them,

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Speaker 1: but some other folks wanted it pretty bad. So how

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Speaker 1: did paddlefish caviard get discovered. Jed's oil got discovered when

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Speaker 1: someone shot a gun into the ground. Here's game Warden

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Speaker 1: Keith Green.

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Speaker 2: There was a guy in Tennessee named Frank Hale, and

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Speaker 2: he was really one of the very first people that

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Speaker 2: it was legal to net him. He went up to

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Speaker 2: Missouri and set up a program on the Missouri River.

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Speaker 2: The guy that I caught here in Oklahoma Billy Wishard,

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Speaker 2: and he's deceased now and we become super super friends.

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Speaker 2: But he got hooked in with Frank Hale through muscle picking,

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Speaker 2: and he brought it back to Oklahoma and there was

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Speaker 2: commercial fishermen on Grand Lake, and he got with that

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Speaker 2: commercial fisherman and we thought nothing about it. They were

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Speaker 2: they had always been able to take paddlefish commercially on

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Speaker 2: Grand Lake with nets, and we started seeing them really

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Speaker 2: targeting paddlefish. They never targeted it before because it's not

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Speaker 2: it's not that it's not as good as flat it's okay.

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Speaker 2: It's really okay if it's taken care of, but it's

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Speaker 2: not like being a flathead or a blue cat. We

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Speaker 2: we kind of caught window of it here in Oklahoma

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Speaker 2: that there was some stuff going on, and I was

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Speaker 2: the supervisor for this area, and so we started working

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Speaker 2: it and we ended up catching a bunch out of

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Speaker 2: Illinois coming in. There was some people that I know,

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Speaker 2: those people at Claremore and and they were pretty well

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Speaker 2: going to the same market that we found out.

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Speaker 1: Over these these are just Oklahoma's.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, these were, but they were connected for out of

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Speaker 2: state because of the muscle picking, and the muscle pickers

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Speaker 2: were the netters, and so it happened nationwide.

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Speaker 1: This Frank Hale out of Tennessee was one of the

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Speaker 1: first major paddlefish caviar kingpins in the US, and he

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Speaker 1: started in the late nineteen eighties. In two thousand and four,

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Speaker 1: he'd be convicted of eleven charges in relation to the

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Speaker 1: Lacy Act. There was an article written about Frank Hale

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Speaker 1: and his caviar in the New York Times in nineteen

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Speaker 1: ninety and Oklahoma and Billy Wishard was a muscle picker

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Speaker 1: who commercially gathered muscles and learned about paddlefish caviar from Frank.

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Speaker 1: You gotta remember Billy, he'll be a major player in

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Speaker 1: this story. But also know that commercial fishing was outlawed

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Speaker 1: in Oklahoma in nineteen seventy four. This is also an

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Speaker 1: important part of the story, so there was no legal

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Speaker 1: way to sell paddlefish eggs in Oklahoma.

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Speaker 4: In Oklahoma, we do not have commercial fishing like they

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Speaker 4: do up and down the Mississippi River Ohio River areas,

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Speaker 4: and those commercial fisherman will target paddlefish, and in those states,

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Speaker 4: from what I understand, they are tightly regulated, even the

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Speaker 4: commercial fishing, but that is kind of what led the problem.

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Speaker 4: Part of the problem in Oklahoma is that you can

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Speaker 4: come to Oklahoma and catch all the paddlefish you could

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Speaker 4: ever want to catch, and in other states you can't

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Speaker 4: do that.

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Speaker 1: So there was no regulation on how many you could take.

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Speaker 4: It's been kind of a progression when I first moved

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Speaker 4: to this area and we started really working them hard

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Speaker 4: that we had a fish a three fish limit per

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Speaker 4: day per day, okay, but you had the first three

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Speaker 4: fish you caught, you had to keep them. There was

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Speaker 4: no calling, there was no throwing, catching release. That in

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Speaker 4: and up self led to problems. If a person caught

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Speaker 4: a paddlefish and he was just that long, you had

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Speaker 4: to keep him and once you caught three, you were done. Well.

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Speaker 4: People didn't want to do that, and they would catch

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Speaker 4: and release and that's kind of what we watched for.

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Speaker 4: And then as we learned more, I say we, as

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Speaker 4: the waldleyfe Department learned more about the paddlefish, some rule

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Speaker 4: changes were made to restrict sport take. You know, all

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Speaker 4: we have is sport fishing, and it's progressed up to

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Speaker 4: today where it's a two fish limit per year and

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Speaker 4: that's all you can take is two fish per calendar year.

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Speaker 1: There are seven states that allow commercial paddlefish harvest Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee,

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Speaker 1: and Mississippi. However, these markets for that caviar is highly regulated.

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Speaker 1: So that's exactly why a place like Oklahoma, without the

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Speaker 1: pressure of commercial fishing, became a holy land for black

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Speaker 1: market spoonbilt caviar. Now, my friends, we have a solid

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Speaker 1: foundation to understand the dynamics for the early years of

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Speaker 1: this illegal activity. I now want to get to know

378
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Speaker 1: game Board and Keith Green a little better. And here's

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Speaker 1: some story of busting egg poachers. And not to foreshadow

380
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Speaker 1: too much, but his law enforcement career would be the

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Speaker 1: backdrop to establish one of the most creative conservation programs

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Speaker 1: ever created. Here's Keith with some family history.

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Speaker 2: The best thing that probably ever happened to me was

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Speaker 2: my game warning career. I loved every minute of it.

385
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Speaker 2: I was My dad was pretty much of a poacher,

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Speaker 2: he really, Yeah, he got to hunt one day a

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Speaker 2: week and that was on Saturdays, and he would be

388
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Speaker 2: quill hunting. We'd started in the morning, quit in the evening.

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Speaker 1: He took advantage of that day of that day and.

390
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Speaker 2: We're hunted the same places for thirty years, you know,

391
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Speaker 2: and never heard. He knew what he would The last

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Speaker 2: thing he'd ever wanted to do was would hurt a population.

393
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Speaker 2: So I was raised on the other side a little bit.

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Speaker 2: So it really helped me in when I become a

395
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Speaker 2: game warden and I got a degree in wallife. He

396
00:24:58,760 --> 00:25:02,760
Speaker 2: called you from an Oklahoma university and you think, well,

397
00:25:02,800 --> 00:25:05,240
Speaker 2: it helped you catch them, And it did that, but

398
00:25:05,320 --> 00:25:09,320
Speaker 2: it also helped my mental state towards somebody doing a

399
00:25:09,400 --> 00:25:12,439
Speaker 2: violation just because they were doing a violation, they were

400
00:25:12,480 --> 00:25:16,439
Speaker 2: in a no good sorry center of it, and so,

401
00:25:16,920 --> 00:25:19,760
Speaker 2: and that's that's what happens to a lot of game wardens.

402
00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:23,159
Speaker 2: You're lied to by everybody, and you see these guys

403
00:25:23,160 --> 00:25:27,159
Speaker 2: doing things wrong, and and they get the mentality that

404
00:25:27,200 --> 00:25:29,640
Speaker 2: they're a bad person because they're violating the game law.

405
00:25:29,680 --> 00:25:32,200
Speaker 2: And that's not always. That's not always. Sometimes it's true,

406
00:25:32,800 --> 00:25:35,359
Speaker 2: but that's not always true. And that kept me from

407
00:25:35,400 --> 00:25:38,919
Speaker 2: developing that. My background kept me from developing that. So

408
00:25:38,960 --> 00:25:41,639
Speaker 2: I had lots of respect, even even the guys that

409
00:25:41,680 --> 00:25:44,320
Speaker 2: I caught. And you'll find out in this story here

410
00:25:45,119 --> 00:25:49,200
Speaker 2: the guy that I ended up hiring with the guy

411
00:25:49,240 --> 00:25:53,320
Speaker 2: that I had caught twice doing eggs illegally, and I

412
00:25:53,359 --> 00:25:56,119
Speaker 2: took a beating from the other game wardens across the

413
00:25:56,119 --> 00:26:00,639
Speaker 2: state because I'd work to catch this guy thousands of ours,

414
00:26:01,400 --> 00:26:04,440
Speaker 2: night after night after night after night after night. Finally

415
00:26:04,480 --> 00:26:08,320
Speaker 2: got him and his brother had done some other stuff

416
00:26:08,359 --> 00:26:10,080
Speaker 2: and was on probation. He said, if you'll keep my

417
00:26:10,119 --> 00:26:12,879
Speaker 2: brother out of jail, he said, I'll teach you how

418
00:26:12,880 --> 00:26:17,840
Speaker 2: to catch these guys. And for two years, any time

419
00:26:17,920 --> 00:26:20,800
Speaker 2: I ever called him, he went with me, would spend

420
00:26:20,800 --> 00:26:25,199
Speaker 2: the whole night with me, we'd go work together, and

421
00:26:25,240 --> 00:26:29,120
Speaker 2: I felt like I had completely converted him.

422
00:26:29,359 --> 00:26:31,919
Speaker 1: The man whom Keith would later hire to help him

423
00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:36,400
Speaker 1: catch Oklahoma poachers was Billy Wisherd, the one who initially

424
00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:40,480
Speaker 1: started the black market trade in Oklahoma before nineteen seventy four,

425
00:26:40,600 --> 00:26:43,080
Speaker 1: Billy was a commercial fisherman and a muscle picker on

426
00:26:43,119 --> 00:26:47,240
Speaker 1: Grand Lake, and his livelihood was pulled out from underneath

427
00:26:47,280 --> 00:26:49,959
Speaker 1: him with the law change. So he took to the

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Speaker 1: world of illegal wildlife trade. But by the time Keith

429
00:26:54,040 --> 00:26:57,200
Speaker 1: caught him, the agency was way behind.

430
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Speaker 2: And we were so far behind eight ball. The poachers

431
00:27:03,680 --> 00:27:06,560
Speaker 2: got on it. You know, they say, let's say it

432
00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:09,840
Speaker 2: started in eighty seven, maybe it was ninety five before

433
00:27:09,840 --> 00:27:12,000
Speaker 2: we knew it was ever raping our legs.

434
00:27:12,080 --> 00:27:16,280
Speaker 1: So in eighty seven is when the embargo happened and

435
00:27:16,520 --> 00:27:19,159
Speaker 1: caviar wasn't coming into the United States, and that for

436
00:27:19,240 --> 00:27:21,880
Speaker 1: like eighty years, it was like the wild West. It

437
00:27:21,920 --> 00:27:23,160
Speaker 1: wasn't a lot of regulation.

438
00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:26,520
Speaker 2: That's right here in Oklahoma at that time. I think

439
00:27:26,560 --> 00:27:30,040
Speaker 2: the limit was five and you could there wasn't any

440
00:27:30,080 --> 00:27:32,320
Speaker 2: limit on how many how many eggs thatts of eggs

441
00:27:32,320 --> 00:27:34,480
Speaker 2: you could have. Yeah, you could take it out of

442
00:27:34,480 --> 00:27:35,600
Speaker 2: the eggs out of state.

443
00:27:36,320 --> 00:27:41,399
Speaker 1: There's just anything goes. For eight years, the black market

444
00:27:41,440 --> 00:27:45,600
Speaker 1: caviard trade ran wild and pretty much unnoticed in Oklahoma.

445
00:27:46,200 --> 00:27:50,280
Speaker 1: Then in nineteen ninety five the Department caught on and

446
00:27:50,680 --> 00:27:55,000
Speaker 1: these eggs were being sold primarily to American buyers, selling

447
00:27:55,080 --> 00:27:58,680
Speaker 1: to American folks. But in the next episode you'll see

448
00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:03,560
Speaker 1: that the players and their nationalities will shift. I want

449
00:28:03,600 --> 00:28:07,320
Speaker 1: to ask Keith about one of his most memorable egg busts.

450
00:28:07,960 --> 00:28:11,119
Speaker 1: It happened to be on Fort Gibson Lake. This is

451
00:28:11,119 --> 00:28:14,560
Speaker 1: the story of catching Billy ray Wishard.

452
00:28:15,520 --> 00:28:18,479
Speaker 2: Him and his brother. They had nets out and they

453
00:28:18,520 --> 00:28:21,080
Speaker 2: would go they were on Fort Gibson Lake, you know

454
00:28:21,160 --> 00:28:23,840
Speaker 2: Fort Gibson. Well, they would go in and put in

455
00:28:24,400 --> 00:28:26,439
Speaker 2: with a little boat out of the back of their truck,

456
00:28:26,720 --> 00:28:29,679
Speaker 2: a V bottom with a little ten horse fifteen horse motor,

457
00:28:30,680 --> 00:28:33,720
Speaker 2: and he would cross the lake and go to where

458
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:36,639
Speaker 2: they had their nets out, and one guy would run it.

459
00:28:37,080 --> 00:28:40,440
Speaker 2: The other guy would drive the truck around almost forty

460
00:28:40,440 --> 00:28:42,640
Speaker 2: miles to the other side of the lake and he

461
00:28:42,680 --> 00:28:45,320
Speaker 2: could watch and see if anybody was following him. He'd

462
00:28:45,360 --> 00:28:48,800
Speaker 2: stop and start and go down a road to dead end,

463
00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:52,920
Speaker 2: and there was just no way to follow him without

464
00:28:52,960 --> 00:28:56,480
Speaker 2: getting caught. And then they would load up on a

465
00:28:56,920 --> 00:29:00,080
Speaker 2: gravel bar, load that V bottom up, stick it in

466
00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:04,000
Speaker 2: the back of their pickup and uh it would it. Actually,

467
00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:05,720
Speaker 2: they kept left the tailgate up and the would set

468
00:29:05,720 --> 00:29:06,520
Speaker 2: it in there like that.

469
00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:09,120
Speaker 1: Uh, with their fish. They would have their fish in

470
00:29:09,160 --> 00:29:09,800
Speaker 1: the back of the truck.

471
00:29:09,960 --> 00:29:12,000
Speaker 2: Gigs. They were throwing the fishing with eggs.

472
00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:15,000
Speaker 1: Oh, they were just taking the eggs, chunking the fish.

473
00:29:15,120 --> 00:29:18,960
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and uh, there's a guy there that they were

474
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:22,800
Speaker 2: on a real real road down the east east side

475
00:29:22,800 --> 00:29:25,920
Speaker 2: of Fort Gibson Lake. Well, there was one house down.

476
00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:29,160
Speaker 2: Then the guy got off at twelve to one o'clock

477
00:29:29,200 --> 00:29:31,600
Speaker 2: and he was coming home and he called another game

478
00:29:31,640 --> 00:29:34,360
Speaker 2: warding down in district too. He said, hey, there's been

479
00:29:34,400 --> 00:29:36,440
Speaker 2: a boat. I've seen it twice in the back of

480
00:29:36,480 --> 00:29:40,160
Speaker 2: a pickup come out of here. So he called me

481
00:29:40,280 --> 00:29:42,040
Speaker 2: and I said, well, I'll go down.

482
00:29:42,040 --> 00:29:44,480
Speaker 1: And now why was he suspicious of that boat?

483
00:29:44,480 --> 00:29:46,800
Speaker 2: One one at one am, two am in the morning.

484
00:29:47,040 --> 00:29:49,800
Speaker 1: That wouldn't be unusual for just a cat fishermen or something.

485
00:29:49,880 --> 00:29:51,640
Speaker 2: Not a boat stuck in the back of a pickup,

486
00:29:51,720 --> 00:29:54,440
Speaker 2: not on a trailer. No, it was just it was

487
00:29:54,560 --> 00:29:57,240
Speaker 2: just it was out of place, okay. And so I

488
00:29:57,320 --> 00:30:01,400
Speaker 2: went down the next night and got in there before daylight,

489
00:30:02,080 --> 00:30:04,480
Speaker 2: and I had another game. Wouldn't go with me? And

490
00:30:04,520 --> 00:30:07,280
Speaker 2: we hid the truck off on a on a road.

491
00:30:07,720 --> 00:30:10,240
Speaker 2: We're sitting there and we're on the back tailgate of

492
00:30:10,280 --> 00:30:14,200
Speaker 2: the truck just being quite listening, and you're a motor

493
00:30:15,760 --> 00:30:18,960
Speaker 2: And we sat there and he was idling that little

494
00:30:19,000 --> 00:30:24,800
Speaker 2: tin horse for about the last mile and his brother

495
00:30:25,400 --> 00:30:27,920
Speaker 2: come in on the on the with the pickup and

496
00:30:28,000 --> 00:30:29,960
Speaker 2: he pulled in and he drove all the way down

497
00:30:30,040 --> 00:30:33,800
Speaker 2: where we hid, but he didn't catch our truck. We'd

498
00:30:33,800 --> 00:30:36,640
Speaker 2: heard the motor. We had crawled out through these cucko

499
00:30:36,720 --> 00:30:39,440
Speaker 2: burr flat and the cucko birds were about this tall

500
00:30:40,280 --> 00:30:43,640
Speaker 2: the guy and we're pretty big. And this road comes

501
00:30:43,640 --> 00:30:45,880
Speaker 2: down and circles around just like this, right in front

502
00:30:45,920 --> 00:30:48,120
Speaker 2: of this kucko bird patch, and here's this point over

503
00:30:48,120 --> 00:30:49,400
Speaker 2: here where they're going to load the boat up. We

504
00:30:49,400 --> 00:30:51,120
Speaker 2: didn't know what was going on at the time, but

505
00:30:52,640 --> 00:30:55,880
Speaker 2: so here comes the truck and and we've called. We've

506
00:30:55,880 --> 00:30:57,560
Speaker 2: gone and gotten the open and we laid down on

507
00:30:57,640 --> 00:30:59,920
Speaker 2: those cucko birds and I know his butts sticking up

508
00:30:59,920 --> 00:31:05,400
Speaker 2: above those cucobirds about that high. And we lay there

509
00:31:05,400 --> 00:31:07,720
Speaker 2: and his pickup lights come across us, and he does

510
00:31:07,840 --> 00:31:12,640
Speaker 2: not see us. He pulls on down and the guy

511
00:31:12,840 --> 00:31:15,560
Speaker 2: is stopped out about. The water was real shallow flat,

512
00:31:15,880 --> 00:31:18,280
Speaker 2: and he'd stopped out about seventy five yards from the

513
00:31:18,320 --> 00:31:21,400
Speaker 2: bank and was walking wading the boat to the bank

514
00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:25,520
Speaker 2: without the motor running. And so we're watching him, and

515
00:31:25,600 --> 00:31:27,360
Speaker 2: we're watching the pickup pull down, and they kind of

516
00:31:27,400 --> 00:31:30,840
Speaker 2: get together, and we've gotten to about we're about forty

517
00:31:30,840 --> 00:31:35,160
Speaker 2: five yards from them, and they're they're getting stuff and

518
00:31:35,200 --> 00:31:37,280
Speaker 2: loading the boat up and putting the motor in underneath

519
00:31:37,280 --> 00:31:40,280
Speaker 2: the boat. And I didn't see I didn't see anything

520
00:31:40,320 --> 00:31:42,640
Speaker 2: that I thought that they could have had eggs in

521
00:31:44,080 --> 00:31:46,160
Speaker 2: and the Gordon, I was with you, because you want

522
00:31:46,160 --> 00:31:47,960
Speaker 2: to get him I go. No, I said, we're going

523
00:31:48,000 --> 00:31:51,160
Speaker 2: to let him go. And that's a hard thing to do.

524
00:31:51,680 --> 00:31:54,440
Speaker 1: And you suspected they were getting eggs.

525
00:31:54,200 --> 00:31:57,360
Speaker 2: Though, no question about it. Yeah, yeah, there's no reason

526
00:31:57,360 --> 00:32:01,360
Speaker 2: for him to be out and no rods, no tackle,

527
00:32:01,800 --> 00:32:04,080
Speaker 2: there's no doubt they're net and they've got ice boxes

528
00:32:04,160 --> 00:32:06,720
Speaker 2: that they didn't have eggs. The boxes they lifted them,

529
00:32:06,760 --> 00:32:10,160
Speaker 2: they were light and we let them drive off. That's

530
00:32:10,560 --> 00:32:13,760
Speaker 2: that was really hard not to hopefully you might get

531
00:32:13,800 --> 00:32:17,040
Speaker 2: something on them, you know. Yeah, So the next night

532
00:32:17,160 --> 00:32:21,800
Speaker 2: Jeff I took Jeff Brown y'all just talk to We

533
00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:25,560
Speaker 2: had about seven wardens there, and I sent Jeff down

534
00:32:25,600 --> 00:32:27,480
Speaker 2: to where the boat where I thought it came from,

535
00:32:27,560 --> 00:32:29,560
Speaker 2: and it was about a half three quarters of my

536
00:32:29,680 --> 00:32:33,800
Speaker 2: walk down the bank. They come in and unload the

537
00:32:33,880 --> 00:32:39,360
Speaker 2: boat right there, which they never did. And I find

538
00:32:39,400 --> 00:32:42,560
Speaker 2: I find this out later. You know, something spooked them

539
00:32:42,600 --> 00:32:44,760
Speaker 2: from the night before. Somehow or other. We spooked them

540
00:32:44,800 --> 00:32:46,520
Speaker 2: a little bit, but that not enough that they didn't

541
00:32:46,560 --> 00:32:49,360
Speaker 2: go get their nets. They had about I think they

542
00:32:49,400 --> 00:32:54,280
Speaker 2: had about seven or eight batches of eggs. And I've

543
00:32:54,320 --> 00:32:56,080
Speaker 2: called out in there's a willow tree in the water.

544
00:32:56,120 --> 00:32:58,040
Speaker 2: It's about this deep, and I've called out in by

545
00:32:58,040 --> 00:33:00,959
Speaker 2: that whillow tree. And uh, you got to have your

546
00:33:01,000 --> 00:33:03,800
Speaker 2: walkie talkie turned off if it makes it sound, you

547
00:33:03,840 --> 00:33:06,920
Speaker 2: know that. So we're sitting there and I watch them

548
00:33:07,200 --> 00:33:10,520
Speaker 2: bring the nets out the out of the boat. They

549
00:33:10,560 --> 00:33:12,920
Speaker 2: set them on a big rag and then they just

550
00:33:12,960 --> 00:33:16,360
Speaker 2: tied the four corners together. And he reached in and

551
00:33:16,400 --> 00:33:18,240
Speaker 2: got an ice chest and he could just it's a

552
00:33:18,320 --> 00:33:21,000
Speaker 2: big old these are big old guys. He could barely

553
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:22,360
Speaker 2: lift it over the side of the boat.

554
00:33:22,640 --> 00:33:24,120
Speaker 1: You know. It's full eggs, no doubt.

555
00:33:25,080 --> 00:33:28,680
Speaker 2: And so I'm just whispering. I turned them knocked down whispering.

556
00:33:28,720 --> 00:33:31,240
Speaker 2: I said, okay, we're going to take them down. And

557
00:33:31,680 --> 00:33:35,400
Speaker 2: still don't know who it is for sure. These guys,

558
00:33:35,440 --> 00:33:37,880
Speaker 2: we knew them. If it was them, they I didn't

559
00:33:37,880 --> 00:33:40,160
Speaker 2: feel like they would try to hurt us. There are

560
00:33:40,200 --> 00:33:42,080
Speaker 2: some guys I felt like that would that would come

561
00:33:42,400 --> 00:33:44,400
Speaker 2: from out of state, that would try to hurt us. Yeah,

562
00:33:45,440 --> 00:33:48,800
Speaker 2: so all these wardens converged on them with shot and

563
00:33:48,840 --> 00:33:51,160
Speaker 2: we had shotguns and you know it.

564
00:33:51,240 --> 00:33:53,880
Speaker 1: Did you lead the chart? You called the Yeah? Yeah,

565
00:33:53,960 --> 00:33:54,840
Speaker 1: what'd you say to them?

566
00:33:54,920 --> 00:33:55,760
Speaker 2: State game warden?

567
00:33:56,240 --> 00:33:58,080
Speaker 1: Stay? That's not what you want to hear in the

568
00:33:58,400 --> 00:34:00,280
Speaker 1: in the dark anytime, is it not?

569
00:34:00,400 --> 00:34:04,880
Speaker 2: With a batch of eggs? And so I ended up

570
00:34:04,960 --> 00:34:07,640
Speaker 2: going back. They let us search where they live.

571
00:34:07,720 --> 00:34:10,239
Speaker 1: They had an okay, so you confront them and they

572
00:34:10,640 --> 00:34:13,440
Speaker 1: just gave up absolutely again And what did they have.

573
00:34:13,600 --> 00:34:17,160
Speaker 2: They're sick. I mean, they're just they're sick because we

574
00:34:17,239 --> 00:34:19,399
Speaker 2: know them. These are the commercial fishermen that I've dealt

575
00:34:19,440 --> 00:34:20,520
Speaker 2: with for a long time.

576
00:34:20,719 --> 00:34:23,120
Speaker 1: These are friend I mean people you're acquainted.

577
00:34:22,640 --> 00:34:25,000
Speaker 2: With absolutely and know them well.

578
00:34:25,200 --> 00:34:26,880
Speaker 1: So you walk up in the dark and shine your

579
00:34:26,960 --> 00:34:28,279
Speaker 1: light and you're like Bill.

580
00:34:28,120 --> 00:34:30,480
Speaker 2: They knew my voice when I said, state game Ward.

581
00:34:30,360 --> 00:34:35,040
Speaker 1: Wow, how much value did the eggs they had right

582
00:34:35,080 --> 00:34:37,359
Speaker 1: that day? You think they had a couple thousand dollars

583
00:34:37,400 --> 00:34:37,719
Speaker 1: worth of.

584
00:34:37,640 --> 00:34:41,040
Speaker 2: Egg Oh yeah, yeah, at least that. But let's say

585
00:34:41,080 --> 00:34:44,040
Speaker 2: they had seven or eight fish and seventy or eighty

586
00:34:44,040 --> 00:34:44,960
Speaker 2: pounds of eggs.

587
00:34:45,360 --> 00:34:47,719
Speaker 1: So the finished product of that caviar would have been

588
00:34:47,760 --> 00:34:51,000
Speaker 1: like thirty five bucks an ounce, But for them, like

589
00:34:51,120 --> 00:34:54,560
Speaker 1: the raw caviar would have been less. Been like a farmer,

590
00:34:54,680 --> 00:34:57,880
Speaker 1: like an absolutely and there was a cornfield. He's not

591
00:34:57,920 --> 00:34:59,120
Speaker 1: getting the little.

592
00:34:58,920 --> 00:35:01,600
Speaker 2: Eggs, so the buyer could kind of rake them over

593
00:35:01,640 --> 00:35:04,480
Speaker 2: the coal anyway. They wouldn't tell us who their buyer was.

594
00:35:05,200 --> 00:35:07,200
Speaker 1: Now, how did you did you interrogate them?

595
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:07,520
Speaker 4: Oh?

596
00:35:07,600 --> 00:35:11,839
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, I question them and and he wouldn't get

597
00:35:12,160 --> 00:35:12,960
Speaker 2: give up his buyer.

598
00:35:15,280 --> 00:35:19,840
Speaker 1: So Keith has now caught Billy Wishard, the Oklahoma caviar kingpin,

599
00:35:20,360 --> 00:35:23,800
Speaker 1: but now he wants to get Billy's buyer. But Billy

600
00:35:23,800 --> 00:35:26,960
Speaker 1: won't talk. But Keith has a trick up his sleeve.

601
00:35:28,000 --> 00:35:31,560
Speaker 2: I was dealing with a couple of caviar buyers that

602
00:35:31,640 --> 00:35:35,960
Speaker 2: we had worked and there was two women and this

603
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:38,359
Speaker 2: one woman called the other woman and.

604
00:35:38,360 --> 00:35:44,040
Speaker 1: Said, hey, said a legal caviar buyers buyers, So you're

605
00:35:44,080 --> 00:35:45,640
Speaker 1: working undercover, you know them.

606
00:35:46,200 --> 00:35:48,440
Speaker 2: I'm putting word out to somebody that I think they'll

607
00:35:48,520 --> 00:35:49,319
Speaker 2: get back to them.

608
00:35:49,640 --> 00:35:51,759
Speaker 1: Okay, And what did you what did you want them

609
00:35:51,760 --> 00:35:52,040
Speaker 1: to hear?

610
00:35:52,200 --> 00:35:56,640
Speaker 2: Yeah? And I I actually told Billy about something. And

611
00:35:57,760 --> 00:36:01,520
Speaker 2: I was at a national symposium Chattanooga and sat down

612
00:36:01,520 --> 00:36:04,600
Speaker 2: with one of these and I said, this buyer was there,

613
00:36:05,560 --> 00:36:08,600
Speaker 2: and I went over sat down with her, and she goes, hey,

614
00:36:08,600 --> 00:36:10,720
Speaker 2: I got a bone to pick with you. And she said,

615
00:36:11,280 --> 00:36:13,799
Speaker 2: a lady from Chicago called me about saying that we

616
00:36:13,800 --> 00:36:16,759
Speaker 2: were taking illegal legs. It was the exact thing that

617
00:36:16,840 --> 00:36:20,040
Speaker 2: I'd told Billy, no question. Now I know who his

618
00:36:20,120 --> 00:36:20,640
Speaker 2: buyer is.

619
00:36:22,920 --> 00:36:26,280
Speaker 1: To be crystal clear, Keith is at a fancy dancy

620
00:36:26,320 --> 00:36:30,879
Speaker 1: caviar symposium representing the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife as they

621
00:36:30,880 --> 00:36:35,160
Speaker 1: have interest in caviar, and he'd made a unique accusation

622
00:36:35,440 --> 00:36:39,319
Speaker 1: about a specific buyer to Billy Wishered, and later this

623
00:36:39,440 --> 00:36:43,879
Speaker 1: lady relayed the secretly coded information back to Keith, which

624
00:36:43,920 --> 00:36:46,800
Speaker 1: indicated to him that she was in contact with Billy.

625
00:36:47,600 --> 00:36:52,240
Speaker 1: That's some fancy lawwork, brother. Here's more with Billy's route

626
00:36:52,320 --> 00:36:54,200
Speaker 1: to justice and redemption.

627
00:36:55,320 --> 00:36:58,600
Speaker 2: And so the fans are working them anyway, and I

628
00:36:58,600 --> 00:37:02,799
Speaker 2: didn't know this. So we get with them, and I

629
00:37:02,920 --> 00:37:05,640
Speaker 2: fly Billy down to Tennessee. We do a profer with

630
00:37:05,680 --> 00:37:08,920
Speaker 2: the US attorney. He goes, uh, And a proffer is

631
00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:11,960
Speaker 2: that you tell me everything and I won't arrest you

632
00:37:12,040 --> 00:37:13,959
Speaker 2: for any of it. You don't.

633
00:37:14,040 --> 00:37:16,600
Speaker 1: This is the guy that you caught yes on Fort

634
00:37:16,640 --> 00:37:17,880
Speaker 1: Gibson Fort Gibson.

635
00:37:18,239 --> 00:37:20,799
Speaker 2: And if you miss something, then we're going to come

636
00:37:20,800 --> 00:37:23,919
Speaker 2: back on you. So he spilt the beans.

637
00:37:24,320 --> 00:37:26,920
Speaker 1: He told who his who was buying the caviar from him.

638
00:37:27,080 --> 00:37:29,439
Speaker 2: Yeah, And like I say, I got to be really

639
00:37:29,480 --> 00:37:32,320
Speaker 2: good friends with him, and and and he and he changed.

640
00:37:33,080 --> 00:37:35,440
Speaker 1: Were they making a lot of money like this? Billy goes, okay,

641
00:37:35,480 --> 00:37:36,040
Speaker 1: I can tell you.

642
00:37:36,560 --> 00:37:39,560
Speaker 2: When we went down and did the proffer, Billy the

643
00:37:39,600 --> 00:37:42,359
Speaker 2: first question he asked, He goes, iris going to come

644
00:37:42,520 --> 00:37:45,320
Speaker 2: back on me? He goes, well, how much we talking about?

645
00:37:45,600 --> 00:37:49,319
Speaker 2: And this was for about half of the spring. He goes, oh,

646
00:37:49,480 --> 00:37:50,520
Speaker 2: maybe two hundred thousand.

647
00:37:50,960 --> 00:37:53,440
Speaker 1: Oh wow, So he had made two hundred thousand like

648
00:37:53,520 --> 00:37:54,320
Speaker 1: that year.

649
00:37:54,520 --> 00:37:56,200
Speaker 2: Half of the spring half?

650
00:37:56,239 --> 00:37:58,000
Speaker 1: Ah wow, this is like big money.

651
00:37:58,400 --> 00:37:59,960
Speaker 2: No, it's it's it's a lot of money.

652
00:38:00,280 --> 00:38:02,600
Speaker 1: Wow. So this is just some old Oklahoma country boy

653
00:38:02,960 --> 00:38:07,040
Speaker 1: absolutely making maybe half a million dollars, so he would

654
00:38:07,080 --> 00:38:09,839
Speaker 1: be very motivated to be a good to get away

655
00:38:09,880 --> 00:38:10,120
Speaker 1: with it.

656
00:38:10,480 --> 00:38:14,080
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, And my mouth kind of dropped a little

657
00:38:14,080 --> 00:38:15,760
Speaker 2: bit because I didn't know it was that much.

658
00:38:18,280 --> 00:38:21,160
Speaker 1: The reason Keith is so open about this convicted poacher

659
00:38:21,520 --> 00:38:24,960
Speaker 1: is they became very good friends and they work together

660
00:38:25,160 --> 00:38:29,279
Speaker 1: in more ways than just catching poachers. This part of

661
00:38:29,320 --> 00:38:32,560
Speaker 1: the story is really more wild than the first. I

662
00:38:32,600 --> 00:38:36,440
Speaker 1: hope you're ready for this. But later Billy Wishard would

663
00:38:36,480 --> 00:38:39,960
Speaker 1: work for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife in their state

664
00:38:40,000 --> 00:38:45,040
Speaker 1: of the art Paddlefish Research Center. Yes, that's right, I said.

665
00:38:45,080 --> 00:38:48,439
Speaker 1: They built a paddlefish center in two thousand and eight.

666
00:38:48,960 --> 00:38:51,799
Speaker 1: And guess who was the lead man that pioneered that

667
00:38:51,880 --> 00:38:56,879
Speaker 1: whole program. It was our man, Keith Green. The next

668
00:38:56,920 --> 00:39:00,440
Speaker 1: part of the story is almost unbelievable and one of

669
00:39:00,480 --> 00:39:04,880
Speaker 1: the most gutsy conservation strategies I've ever heard. This is

670
00:39:04,920 --> 00:39:07,920
Speaker 1: the kind of stuff that makes me love Oklahoma. Buckle

671
00:39:08,000 --> 00:39:09,360
Speaker 1: up for some twists and turns.

672
00:39:09,800 --> 00:39:14,919
Speaker 4: Here's Jeff Brown the Paddlefish Research Center. Affectionately we called

673
00:39:14,920 --> 00:39:18,920
Speaker 4: it the Paddlefish Palace, but the Paddlefish Research Center was

674
00:39:18,960 --> 00:39:23,640
Speaker 4: something completely independent of enforcement and our enforcement efforts. But

675
00:39:23,719 --> 00:39:27,680
Speaker 4: about it the same time, the Wildlife Department wanted to

676
00:39:27,719 --> 00:39:34,040
Speaker 4: initiate a study on these paddlefish because their uniqueness, because

677
00:39:34,080 --> 00:39:38,320
Speaker 4: of their value, needed to know more about it. So

678
00:39:38,719 --> 00:39:42,200
Speaker 4: Keith Green, who was a game warden, and him and

679
00:39:42,280 --> 00:39:45,680
Speaker 4: I worked hand in hand and worked arguably more than

680
00:39:45,680 --> 00:39:49,279
Speaker 4: anybody on the enforcement end of it. To start with,

681
00:39:50,280 --> 00:39:54,719
Speaker 4: they put Keith in charge of setting up this Paddlefish

682
00:39:54,800 --> 00:39:57,719
Speaker 4: Research Center and he's the only person that could have

683
00:39:57,719 --> 00:40:01,000
Speaker 4: done it. So he built this research center from the

684
00:40:01,000 --> 00:40:05,400
Speaker 4: ground up and its sole purpose was to have an

685
00:40:05,400 --> 00:40:07,160
Speaker 4: opportunity to study these fish.

686
00:40:07,520 --> 00:40:09,080
Speaker 1: So what people caught them.

687
00:40:08,920 --> 00:40:11,560
Speaker 4: So when people caught them in the Grand River system,

688
00:40:11,719 --> 00:40:14,560
Speaker 4: and it was completely voluntary on the fishermen's part, and

689
00:40:14,680 --> 00:40:17,319
Speaker 4: when they caught these fish, if they wanted to, they

690
00:40:17,360 --> 00:40:21,040
Speaker 4: could bring the fish to these Paddlefish center and the

691
00:40:21,520 --> 00:40:23,960
Speaker 4: guys working the Paddlefish Center would clean.

692
00:40:23,800 --> 00:40:25,080
Speaker 2: Them for them.

693
00:40:25,360 --> 00:40:28,799
Speaker 4: Well, a byproduct to that is all these eggs which

694
00:40:28,840 --> 00:40:32,239
Speaker 4: people can't have. You know, they can have some, but

695
00:40:32,280 --> 00:40:35,799
Speaker 4: they can't have a whole lot. So a byproduct it

696
00:40:35,840 --> 00:40:38,640
Speaker 4: was all these eggs. Well, okay, so let's make caviar

697
00:40:38,719 --> 00:40:41,320
Speaker 4: out of the eggs as a byproduct of this research

698
00:40:41,320 --> 00:40:43,640
Speaker 4: that we're doing, and we'll sell the eggs. We mean,

699
00:40:43,680 --> 00:40:46,520
Speaker 4: in the wallet department, we'll sell the eggs to pay

700
00:40:46,560 --> 00:40:52,680
Speaker 4: for the facility and the research. And it was really controversial.

701
00:40:53,520 --> 00:40:57,200
Speaker 1: To make again crystal clear what's happening here and its significance.

702
00:40:57,400 --> 00:41:00,880
Speaker 1: Here's the layout. Commercial fishing is a leg in Oklahoma,

703
00:41:01,000 --> 00:41:05,440
Speaker 1: so you can't sell eggs. New regulations permit each license

704
00:41:05,480 --> 00:41:09,400
Speaker 1: holder to only three pounds of eggs per year. Remember

705
00:41:09,400 --> 00:41:12,320
Speaker 1: that you can have only three pounds in your possession

706
00:41:12,680 --> 00:41:16,360
Speaker 1: for the year. However, they've got a huge paddlefish fishery.

707
00:41:16,840 --> 00:41:21,160
Speaker 1: Catching them is becoming popular simultaneous to a global demand

708
00:41:21,200 --> 00:41:25,719
Speaker 1: for caviar. The Wildlife Department had the idea to process

709
00:41:25,840 --> 00:41:29,160
Speaker 1: the giant fish for free of charge in return for

710
00:41:29,239 --> 00:41:33,000
Speaker 1: the anglers donating their eggs to the department to be

711
00:41:33,080 --> 00:41:38,360
Speaker 1: processed into caviar and sold legally on the market by

712
00:41:38,680 --> 00:41:42,640
Speaker 1: the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife. This had never been done

713
00:41:42,760 --> 00:41:47,360
Speaker 1: before by a state agency. Here's Keith on the first

714
00:41:47,480 --> 00:41:50,080
Speaker 1: year of running the Paddlefish Palace.

715
00:41:51,400 --> 00:41:55,839
Speaker 2: We got it built and run the first year, and

716
00:41:55,920 --> 00:41:58,319
Speaker 2: we did it for five hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

717
00:41:58,640 --> 00:42:00,439
Speaker 2: We told them it would take a year and a half.

718
00:42:00,440 --> 00:42:02,399
Speaker 2: We told the Walife Commission that it would probably take

719
00:42:02,400 --> 00:42:06,160
Speaker 2: about a year and a half to break even on it. Well,

720
00:42:06,200 --> 00:42:09,799
Speaker 2: the first year it produced one point five million and

721
00:42:09,880 --> 00:42:14,840
Speaker 2: so from the sell of eggs, and it was a

722
00:42:14,840 --> 00:42:18,080
Speaker 2: pretty hard deal. He wanted, the director wanted me to

723
00:42:18,080 --> 00:42:20,520
Speaker 2: go around to the department employees and explain what we

724
00:42:20,520 --> 00:42:24,480
Speaker 2: were doing. And it was boy, it was not like

725
00:42:25,640 --> 00:42:31,920
Speaker 2: I got hammered. And finally I tried to bring the

726
00:42:31,960 --> 00:42:35,479
Speaker 2: point that this is a salvage operation. All these eggs.

727
00:42:35,520 --> 00:42:39,799
Speaker 2: It's illegal for anybody to sell their eggs. They could

728
00:42:39,880 --> 00:42:41,960
Speaker 2: use them for fish bait, they could make caviar at

729
00:42:42,000 --> 00:42:45,560
Speaker 2: them if they wanted. This was a volunteer program. But

730
00:42:45,600 --> 00:42:48,320
Speaker 2: they would bring their fish in and donate the eggs

731
00:42:48,320 --> 00:42:51,120
Speaker 2: to the Waife Department. But while while they were doing that,

732
00:42:51,440 --> 00:42:53,520
Speaker 2: we were going to pull both jaws out of the fish.

733
00:42:54,160 --> 00:42:56,399
Speaker 2: We're going to get the link of the fish. We're

734
00:42:56,440 --> 00:42:59,400
Speaker 2: going to get the weight of the fish. With the jaws,

735
00:42:59,480 --> 00:43:02,839
Speaker 2: were to be able to age them, and we can

736
00:43:02,880 --> 00:43:05,680
Speaker 2: start looking at our population of fish in the lake

737
00:43:06,120 --> 00:43:09,520
Speaker 2: a lot better and explain that to him, and it

738
00:43:09,600 --> 00:43:12,720
Speaker 2: was still that, well, we're the Walleffe Department. We shouldn't

739
00:43:12,760 --> 00:43:19,360
Speaker 2: be selling commercial stuff eggs. Yeah, And finally I brought

740
00:43:19,360 --> 00:43:22,960
Speaker 2: the point up that every penny's going back into the

741
00:43:22,960 --> 00:43:26,240
Speaker 2: general fund of the Walleff Department. It wasn't going anywhere else.

742
00:43:27,120 --> 00:43:30,640
Speaker 2: Every deer that we have in Oklahoma, we sell it

743
00:43:30,640 --> 00:43:33,480
Speaker 2: for twenty dollars apiece. You go buy your license for

744
00:43:33,560 --> 00:43:36,600
Speaker 2: twenty dollars. You go buy your turkey tag for ten dollars.

745
00:43:37,239 --> 00:43:40,359
Speaker 2: And when these people are bringing these fishing or we're

746
00:43:40,400 --> 00:43:43,360
Speaker 2: picking them up, we're getting to talk to him. Every

747
00:43:43,440 --> 00:43:48,440
Speaker 2: angler we got to talk to him, and that's pretty unusual.

748
00:43:49,680 --> 00:43:52,839
Speaker 1: Keith, and the program took a lot of persecution from

749
00:43:52,840 --> 00:43:54,880
Speaker 1: all sides. Here's Jeff.

750
00:43:55,760 --> 00:43:59,360
Speaker 4: It was really controversial, and I can imagine it was

751
00:43:59,400 --> 00:44:03,640
Speaker 4: really device not only with the public, but also within

752
00:44:03,680 --> 00:44:04,560
Speaker 4: the Wallet Department.

753
00:44:05,000 --> 00:44:07,399
Speaker 1: There's a lot of because people were like, hey, you're

754
00:44:07,440 --> 00:44:10,680
Speaker 1: making this illegal for us, but y'all are doing absolutely

755
00:44:10,760 --> 00:44:13,879
Speaker 1: what we can't do absolutely, And how did that go down?

756
00:44:14,000 --> 00:44:14,080
Speaker 5: Like?

757
00:44:14,400 --> 00:44:14,800
Speaker 2: Who?

758
00:44:14,920 --> 00:44:18,080
Speaker 4: The best way I know to explain that is, look, okay,

759
00:44:18,560 --> 00:44:22,200
Speaker 4: if you go catch. Clay Newcombe goes and catches a

760
00:44:22,239 --> 00:44:26,400
Speaker 4: paddlefish and processes the eggs and sells it. You profit

761
00:44:26,480 --> 00:44:30,160
Speaker 4: from that. You profit from a fish that everybody owns.

762
00:44:30,719 --> 00:44:34,000
Speaker 4: The wildlife in Oklahoma under the North American model is

763
00:44:34,600 --> 00:44:37,480
Speaker 4: all the wildlife is owned by the people, by the people,

764
00:44:37,800 --> 00:44:41,440
Speaker 4: but it's managed by the state. Okay, so if you

765
00:44:41,640 --> 00:44:45,080
Speaker 4: process the eggs and you're pocketing all the money. If

766
00:44:45,120 --> 00:44:49,239
Speaker 4: the Waldleife Department processes the eggs and sells them, everybody's

767
00:44:49,400 --> 00:44:50,279
Speaker 4: benefiting from it.

768
00:44:51,400 --> 00:44:54,080
Speaker 1: So they take this caviaar and every day they're getting

769
00:44:54,080 --> 00:44:56,400
Speaker 1: all this caviart. So they have got to have like

770
00:44:57,000 --> 00:45:01,440
Speaker 1: government sanctioned processing facilit these ye like you know, if

771
00:45:01,440 --> 00:45:03,920
Speaker 1: they were butcher me to be the USDA, maybe it's

772
00:45:03,920 --> 00:45:07,120
Speaker 1: the USDA. And then how are they selling it? They

773
00:45:07,160 --> 00:45:09,200
Speaker 1: got a little roadside shop on the are No.

774
00:45:09,680 --> 00:45:11,319
Speaker 4: It was all. It was all sent out for bid,

775
00:45:11,560 --> 00:45:15,279
Speaker 4: just like any other just like any other state generating commodity.

776
00:45:15,880 --> 00:45:19,120
Speaker 4: It was Okay, we've got x x number or x

777
00:45:19,200 --> 00:45:21,960
Speaker 4: pounds of caviar and we're going to sell it to

778
00:45:21,960 --> 00:45:22,800
Speaker 4: the highest bid.

779
00:45:23,000 --> 00:45:25,560
Speaker 1: So so it went up to open bid, and who

780
00:45:25,640 --> 00:45:28,080
Speaker 1: would who would buy this? Would it be like New

781
00:45:28,160 --> 00:45:29,839
Speaker 1: York Caviar House.

782
00:45:29,680 --> 00:45:33,520
Speaker 4: Or Japanese bought most of it. Really, the Japanese, I

783
00:45:33,520 --> 00:45:35,320
Speaker 4: think right up to the end they were the biggest

784
00:45:35,360 --> 00:45:36,040
Speaker 4: purchasers of it.

785
00:45:36,160 --> 00:45:39,120
Speaker 1: So how much do you have any numbers on like

786
00:45:39,160 --> 00:45:42,040
Speaker 1: how much caviar and how much money was being generated.

787
00:45:42,040 --> 00:45:44,160
Speaker 1: I mean it was like a substantial amount of money.

788
00:45:44,920 --> 00:45:47,600
Speaker 4: The first year, it was just it blew everybody's mind away.

789
00:45:48,560 --> 00:45:51,360
Speaker 4: It was like just short of twenty pounds, I think, Wow.

790
00:45:51,840 --> 00:45:53,960
Speaker 1: And all this money goes back into.

791
00:45:53,880 --> 00:45:55,920
Speaker 4: All that money, all that money went back into the

792
00:45:56,160 --> 00:45:57,360
Speaker 4: into the research.

793
00:45:57,400 --> 00:45:59,440
Speaker 1: Like specifically paddlefish.

794
00:45:58,960 --> 00:46:04,839
Speaker 4: Research, and and so the paddlefish research didn't cost that much. Yeah,

795
00:46:05,080 --> 00:46:09,200
Speaker 4: So with that money, they put in access areas for fishermen,

796
00:46:09,600 --> 00:46:11,840
Speaker 4: they built boat ramps. I mean, it went back into

797
00:46:11,880 --> 00:46:12,920
Speaker 4: the fishermen.

798
00:46:14,120 --> 00:46:18,800
Speaker 1: In Oklahoma. This was revolutionary, like no game agents.

799
00:46:18,840 --> 00:46:23,360
Speaker 2: Never been done before with a game agency. And you

800
00:46:23,400 --> 00:46:26,200
Speaker 2: wouldn't believe the perception how it changed in the wal

801
00:46:26,239 --> 00:46:29,759
Speaker 2: Off Department. After three or four years, it saw what

802
00:46:29,800 --> 00:46:33,800
Speaker 2: we were doing for the public. The public absolutely loved it.

803
00:46:33,800 --> 00:46:36,440
Speaker 2: It was a hands on they were helping. They wanted

804
00:46:36,440 --> 00:46:38,759
Speaker 2: to get their fish there. So we could get the

805
00:46:38,760 --> 00:46:41,480
Speaker 2: eggs out of it they could get the meat and

806
00:46:41,480 --> 00:46:45,200
Speaker 2: it would they were helping the Walleffe Department, but it

807
00:46:45,320 --> 00:46:48,279
Speaker 2: was hunters and fishermen's money would have been going out

808
00:46:48,719 --> 00:46:51,960
Speaker 2: to do all this management on these paddlefish, and this

809
00:46:52,080 --> 00:46:56,439
Speaker 2: way it was free. Yeah, and these fish were being

810
00:46:56,520 --> 00:47:03,720
Speaker 2: killed anyway. And after the people in the department completely changed.

811
00:47:04,200 --> 00:47:07,200
Speaker 1: Like overall. Do you know how much money that generated

812
00:47:07,239 --> 00:47:08,040
Speaker 1: for wildlife?

813
00:47:08,560 --> 00:47:12,000
Speaker 2: I heard a figure hero a while back that it

814
00:47:12,120 --> 00:47:16,759
Speaker 2: had it had produced over ten million. I know that

815
00:47:16,840 --> 00:47:20,000
Speaker 2: I had one year that it produced two point eight

816
00:47:20,080 --> 00:47:23,680
Speaker 2: million when I was there, and another year was over

817
00:47:23,719 --> 00:47:24,320
Speaker 2: two million.

818
00:47:26,040 --> 00:47:30,120
Speaker 1: The success of the program was undeniable, raising a ton

819
00:47:30,160 --> 00:47:34,160
Speaker 1: of money for Oklahoma fisheries. But I still haven't told

820
00:47:34,160 --> 00:47:38,040
Speaker 1: you the whole story. This thing just keeps unraveling. This

821
00:47:38,280 --> 00:47:42,640
Speaker 1: is the ultimate boomerang might drop ending. Keith and the

822
00:47:42,640 --> 00:47:46,239
Speaker 1: Paddlefish Research Center from day one had to have an

823
00:47:46,280 --> 00:47:50,000
Speaker 1: expert in making caviar, which is a delicate process to

824
00:47:50,120 --> 00:47:54,200
Speaker 1: make the raw eggs into these caviar dreams. Because this

825
00:47:54,239 --> 00:47:57,480
Speaker 1: stuff had to be world class and worth top dollar

826
00:47:57,600 --> 00:48:01,600
Speaker 1: on the global market, they needed expert. So who do

827
00:48:01,640 --> 00:48:05,640
Speaker 1: you think Keith hired. Do you remember old Billy Ray Wishard.

828
00:48:06,280 --> 00:48:06,880
Speaker 1: Here's Keith.

829
00:48:09,320 --> 00:48:11,440
Speaker 2: This was the deal. When we brought him in. I

830
00:48:11,440 --> 00:48:14,760
Speaker 2: did a nationwide search because we wanted the best eggs

831
00:48:14,800 --> 00:48:17,319
Speaker 2: we could get. I knew he'd been doing eggs for

832
00:48:17,360 --> 00:48:20,840
Speaker 2: a long time and he'd sold eggs in New York

833
00:48:20,960 --> 00:48:25,759
Speaker 2: and but I did a nation white search and interviewed

834
00:48:26,120 --> 00:48:28,959
Speaker 2: I think of four or five people to come and

835
00:48:29,000 --> 00:48:32,160
Speaker 2: do our eggs in Oklahoma. I knew how to do them,

836
00:48:32,200 --> 00:48:35,480
Speaker 2: but I didn't I did I was, I wasn't a processor,

837
00:48:36,400 --> 00:48:38,680
Speaker 2: and Billy was the best screener that.

838
00:48:38,640 --> 00:48:41,560
Speaker 1: I So Billy came to work for you at the

839
00:48:41,560 --> 00:48:42,880
Speaker 1: Paddlefish Research Center.

840
00:48:43,120 --> 00:48:46,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, after after interviewing on nationwide.

841
00:48:46,320 --> 00:48:47,680
Speaker 1: And he was the best.

842
00:48:47,880 --> 00:48:48,640
Speaker 2: He was the best.

843
00:48:51,360 --> 00:48:53,359
Speaker 1: Now, if that ain't a full dose of that Bear

844
00:48:53,440 --> 00:48:56,200
Speaker 1: Grease redemption that we all love, I don't know what

845
00:48:56,440 --> 00:49:00,800
Speaker 1: is this Oklahoma caviar kingpin that ed introduced the black

846
00:49:00,840 --> 00:49:06,040
Speaker 1: market Oklahoma ended being the lead X processor in the

847
00:49:06,120 --> 00:49:11,080
Speaker 1: state for years. As Keith said earlier, Billy has since

848
00:49:11,160 --> 00:49:14,680
Speaker 1: passed away that he and Keith were good friends right

849
00:49:14,680 --> 00:49:19,720
Speaker 1: to the end. I can't thank you enough for listening

850
00:49:19,719 --> 00:49:22,480
Speaker 1: to bear Grease. On the next episode, we're going to

851
00:49:22,560 --> 00:49:27,600
Speaker 1: talk about a sting operation in Oklahoma called Operation Russian Snack.

852
00:49:28,120 --> 00:49:31,279
Speaker 1: It has to do with Eastern Europeans and it's even

853
00:49:31,320 --> 00:49:36,120
Speaker 1: more wild than this story. Please share our podcast with

854
00:49:36,200 --> 00:49:39,839
Speaker 1: your friends and families, outlaws and in laws, and tell

855
00:49:39,880 --> 00:49:43,360
Speaker 1: them about the gritty American stories that you're hearing on

856
00:49:43,560 --> 00:49:51,520
Speaker 1: bear Grease in this country life. Thanks to all of you,