Speaker 1: My name is Clay Nukeleman. This is a production of
Speaker 1: the bear Grease podcast called The Bear Grease Render, where
Speaker 1: we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes
Speaker 1: of the actual bear Grease podcast presented by f h
Speaker 1: F Gear, American Maid, purpose built hunting and fishing gear
Speaker 1: that's designed to be as rugged as the place as
Speaker 1: we explore. Welcome to the Bear Grease Render Podcast. Brent,
Speaker 1: what have we done to deserve such a such a noble,
Speaker 1: noble crowd here?
Speaker 2: I don't know, man, it's with good effort, you get
Speaker 2: good results.
Speaker 1: Good effort gets good results. Yeah, Okay, it's good to
Speaker 1: see you, Brent.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: It's been a while.
Speaker 2: It has been anything.
Speaker 1: You'd like to dress the audience about, just like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, just like where you've been, what you've been
Speaker 1: doing that could be more important than being on the render.
Speaker 2: Well, I've been catching catfish, yeah, commercial fishing with my brother,
Speaker 2: commercial in the Arkansas River and we've been doing pretty good. Yeah.
Speaker 2: In Arkansas, if you put your nets out, you got
Speaker 2: you gotta check them every forty eight hours during this
Speaker 2: time of year, Yeah, cause the water temperature and they
Speaker 2: get fish gets stressed and you don't want to lose
Speaker 2: the resource, so we put them out. You got to
Speaker 2: go get them. You know, in the winter time, you
Speaker 2: can leave them out five, six, seven days and it
Speaker 2: usually takes that long to catch a good mess of fish.
Speaker 2: But this time you got to go. So that's what happened.
Speaker 2: I've been missing, yeah, a couple and Cody's in my chair.
Speaker 2: So there's that. The audience needs to know that if
Speaker 2: I sound a little off, I'm.
Speaker 3: Out of you.
Speaker 1: You're out of the chair.
Speaker 2: It didn't off. He told me to stay away.
Speaker 1: Well, got to come back to the commercial fishing. But
Speaker 1: let's let's introduce our Let's introduce our guests. We have
Speaker 1: we have four employees of the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife
Speaker 1: with us. All happened to be game wardens. Uh, Austin,
Speaker 1: why don't you just introduce yourself? Tell me where you
Speaker 1: where you work, and how long you been with the
Speaker 1: departments stuff like that.
Speaker 4: My name's Austin Jackson. I'm the Craig Kenny game Orden.
Speaker 4: I've been employed with Oklahoma Department Whilelife since twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1: Okay, So Austin was the guy that contacted me that said, hey,
Speaker 1: you need to do a podcast. I was wondering how
Speaker 1: you Keith Green and uh and and just this paddlefish,
Speaker 1: the whole paddlefish story awesome and man, you don't know
Speaker 1: how many people do that and it and it just
Speaker 1: never plays out like there's a lot of great ideas.
Speaker 1: There's no there's no limit to the amount of good
Speaker 1: ideas that people talk to me about. But there's got
Speaker 1: to be like ten things that lie up for it
Speaker 1: to work. And it worked. So thanks a ton good
Speaker 1: for the tip, you know, but that's great.
Speaker 3: Hank, Yes, sir, I'm Hank Jinks. I'm the actually the
Speaker 3: captain over kind of the northeast corner of Oklahoma over
Speaker 3: to around the tuls Areas ten counties. I'll just throw
Speaker 3: it out. I've got kind of a weird history. I've
Speaker 3: spent ten years as a game warden back and started
Speaker 3: in ninety two and then left and went to the
Speaker 3: highway patrol and the flying helicopters for them for most
Speaker 3: of my career, and then came back in about a
Speaker 3: year and a half ago.
Speaker 1: So really, yeah, so you're a helicopter pilot, Yes, sir,
Speaker 1: you can catch them on foot in the car and
Speaker 1: a helicopter or whatever it takes.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: So you've now what kind of stuff would you be
Speaker 1: would you have been doing in a helicopter for the
Speaker 1: state police.
Speaker 3: So we we did a lot of weird stuff, the
Speaker 3: things you would probably think about, like, man, huh some
Speaker 3: search and rescues. Oklahoma had a really robust uh traffic.
Speaker 3: We would fly if you've ever seen the little white
Speaker 3: crosses on the side of the interstate their they're known distances.
Speaker 3: So we would take airplanes out, usually in airplanes and
Speaker 3: not helicopters on there. When we would we had chronographs
Speaker 3: in the cockpit and we would we would measure, we
Speaker 3: would time people whatever. You know, it's it's a given
Speaker 3: that radar detectors had no bearing on it, so they
Speaker 3: you know, we would time them from one point to
Speaker 3: the to.
Speaker 1: Them from the air.
Speaker 3: From the air traffic, you can write tickets just as
Speaker 3: fast as you can get.
Speaker 1: So then you have somebody on the ground that yeah, it.
Speaker 2: Was a setup.
Speaker 3: You know, it was a scheduled deal. We would have one, two,
Speaker 3: three troopers there and uh, and we would we would
Speaker 3: just have it. You know, it's kind of a scheduled deal.
Speaker 1: And always thought that was hype when I saw its signs,
Speaker 1: it's true and it works. Speeds monitored by air.
Speaker 3: We we would write on the interstates twenty thirty forty
Speaker 3: tickets you know an hour were just normal.
Speaker 2: Wo.
Speaker 3: We did we did that. We did a lot of
Speaker 3: uh like if the governor needed a ride somewhere, and
Speaker 3: we would, we would. We were the ones tasked with that,
Speaker 3: and I did. I stayed true to my roots and
Speaker 3: worked with these guys a lot, and UH did a
Speaker 3: lot of you know, night hunt activities. The highway troller.
Speaker 3: I didn't do that a lot of that until I
Speaker 3: coaxed him into to doing that. And so and I've
Speaker 3: actually worked some of these cases working we would fly
Speaker 3: rivers and stuff at night looking for all these croatures
Speaker 3: back when they were really hot and heaver kind of
Speaker 3: kind of when it was in its heyday.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, wow, that's really neat, really neat. Lieutenant Joe.
Speaker 5: Yeah. So I'm Joe Alexander game Warden supervisor up in
Speaker 5: northeast Oklahoma. All the northern counties are kind of my counties,
Speaker 5: and I represent these these fellows here in the room
Speaker 5: and uh, you know, I've been doing that since two
Speaker 5: thousand and six and uh spent a little time in
Speaker 5: the police department before that, like my good friend Brent here,
Speaker 5: but we can't talk about that.
Speaker 1: There was a long secret information being traded between Joe
Speaker 1: and Brent earlier that that that I've not been able to.
Speaker 2: Man were like Mason's we got signs going over here
Speaker 2: than nobody.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks for being here.
Speaker 6: Yes, sir, I'm Cody Moore. I've been with the Wildlife
Speaker 6: Department since two thousand and eight. I was actually in
Speaker 6: fish Division for two years as the battlefish biologist for Oklahoma.
Speaker 6: And I've been in law enforcement since twenty ten. Okay,
Speaker 6: and I'm in Prior, which is forty five minutes north
Speaker 6: and east of Tulsa.
Speaker 1: Man, I gotta say I love Oklahoma. Oklahoma is like,
Speaker 1: is different than Arkansas. It's really it's it really is interesting.
Speaker 1: It's hard to articulate the differences in states. But if
Speaker 1: you go into Mississippi, like it's just different. You go
Speaker 1: into Oklahoma, it's just different. But I'm a big Oklahoma fan.
Speaker 1: Oklahoma feels like the West to me, Like when you
Speaker 1: cross into Oklahoma, you're actually kind of out of the South.
Speaker 1: You you guys would are you Southerners?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I would say so, sure. Yeah, Oklahoma's unique because
Speaker 5: it's so different the topography. You can you know, you've
Speaker 5: got mountains in one part of it, You've got deserts
Speaker 5: in another part. You've got the Ozarks. In one part
Speaker 5: of it, You've got the southeast, which is you know,
Speaker 5: rolling hills, beautiful country. Then you get into some swampy
Speaker 5: country once you get down in McCurtain County and stuff.
Speaker 5: So it's you know, we really got it all.
Speaker 1: You know, you're right on the the echo tone between
Speaker 1: the Eastern deciduous forests and the Great Plains, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean it's like you get like probably fifty miles
Speaker 1: like pure eastern deciduous forests or maybe more. Yes, yea,
Speaker 1: that is that about right? Yeah, and you kind of
Speaker 1: get like west of Tulsa and it really starts to
Speaker 1: flatten now and kind of naturally have less trees. I mean,
Speaker 1: is that about right?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: It's almost like it's kind of a hub with those
Speaker 3: ecosystems too, because I never had really thought about it,
Speaker 3: but like you were saying, like in the northeast corner,
Speaker 3: you know, you have oak hickory, and you get into
Speaker 3: cherry trees not like they have in Pennsylvania. But and
Speaker 3: you go northeast for ten states and it looks almost
Speaker 3: just like that. And then you get in the southeast
Speaker 3: corner and you have the delta that you know, you
Speaker 3: take off and it stays like that for several You
Speaker 3: get out west and you get into that that prairie
Speaker 3: and you take off west and go across ten states
Speaker 3: and they're not ten but you know, and it's just
Speaker 3: kind of it all starts right in Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: All of those yeffer, yeah, yeah, football teams aren't any good,
Speaker 1: but we're about to find out, as the guy from Arkansas, like,
Speaker 1: we hadn't won a game in like four years. Let's
Speaker 1: not talk about that now. It's so great to have
Speaker 1: you guys, truly is I got. I got to tell
Speaker 1: the story Brent that I told all these guys before
Speaker 1: we introduce everybody. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 5: I didn't think that he would let her talk.
Speaker 1: Yes, I should have. Hello.
Speaker 7: I walked in today and there was Brent, who I
Speaker 7: haven't seen in a while, and a room full of
Speaker 7: game wardens, and I thought the sting operation is up.
Speaker 7: I'm not sure what I didn't. I don't think you
Speaker 7: did it on purpose, but Brent's undercover work has finally
Speaker 7: got to f and them trading secrets isn't helping.
Speaker 5: It operation pour out the grease.
Speaker 1: It Actually, this is not a joke. I kind of
Speaker 1: thought Brent was undercover for a while. I truly did,
Speaker 1: because I was in a period of time. I was
Speaker 1: in a period of time when I was hype. I
Speaker 1: don't know why, because really I've just always been pretty
Speaker 1: straight laced. Now I'm not saying I have accidentally broken laws,
Speaker 1: because I have the the but it was in a
Speaker 1: period of time. And I'm also going to tell about
Speaker 1: what I did when I crossed into Oklahoma. But I
Speaker 1: was like hyper paranoid about all this stuff, and uh,
Speaker 1: Brent called me and he was just like, hey, I'd
Speaker 1: love to fill me. And I was like, this is
Speaker 1: this guy? Why does he have so much time? Why
Speaker 1: is he so willing to help?
Speaker 2: And uh, I'm too lazy to work. I like to
Speaker 2: be outside.
Speaker 1: No, but I gotta I gotta tell the story that
Speaker 1: that I already told you guys, so Misty wouldn't have
Speaker 1: heard it. When I first started baiting bears in Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: I was I was hunting in Arkansas as well, but
Speaker 1: crossing into Oklahoma and there were different season dates and
Speaker 1: uh and and actually this would have happened before season,
Speaker 1: so I didn't have my hunting stuff with me. But
Speaker 1: I remember one time coming from Arkansas, stopping at the
Speaker 1: state line, hiding a gun in the woods, and then
Speaker 1: driving into Oklahoma because I was so paranoid to be
Speaker 1: in a different state, you know, out of state tags,
Speaker 1: having a gun in my truck, going to a bear bait,
Speaker 1: and I just didn't want to deal with it. And
Speaker 1: so I hit a gun off in the woods, which
Speaker 1: sounds pretty suspicious, but I was just trying to be
Speaker 1: straight laced. And then I called one of these guys colleagues,
Speaker 1: and I told him. I was like, hey, I just
Speaker 1: want to be I just I just want you to
Speaker 1: know what's going on. I'm bait, I'm hunting in Arkansas
Speaker 1: and Oklahoma, and there's different season dates and when I
Speaker 1: go down there, I've got to go back and forth.
Speaker 1: And they were just like it's fine. They act like
Speaker 1: it was no big deal. I called the Arkansas guys too,
Speaker 1: and they were like, why are you telling me this?
Speaker 1: I Like, they were just like, there was like no
Speaker 1: big deal, you.
Speaker 8: Know, but a bigger deal to hide a gun in
Speaker 8: the woods.
Speaker 1: Yeah that was probably yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, who knows.
Speaker 1: But uh, well the man, So you guys are like
Speaker 1: paddlefish paddlefish experts in terms of law enforcement. You heard
Speaker 1: the you heard the podcast. I'd kind of like to
Speaker 1: just go around and just get your general impressions of
Speaker 1: of you know, obviously you know these stories, but just
Speaker 1: kind of I don't know if you have any background
Speaker 1: on Keith or or Jeff that which were those guys
Speaker 1: such great guys, just incredible guys. But what do you
Speaker 1: think about the podcast? Austin?
Speaker 4: I thought the episode was great. So a little bit
Speaker 4: of history. I moved into Craig County a couple of
Speaker 4: months after I got hired and transferred up there, and
Speaker 4: that was Keith Green's old county. That's where he worked
Speaker 4: his whole entire career, and he'd been retired at that time.
Speaker 4: So Day one, I get in the truck with Jeff Brown,
Speaker 4: who's he was the captain at that time, and the
Speaker 4: first thing out of his mouth is welcome to District one.
Speaker 4: Paddlefish is king. That's what people learn to work, and
Speaker 4: you did. That's that's what you had to do. That
Speaker 4: was primarily what we spent a lot of time on
Speaker 4: m M, so it's a I got to hear all
Speaker 4: the old war stories from from Keith and Jeff. Me
Speaker 4: and Keith have become really good friends. Super neat guy.
Speaker 4: Very interesting. You described me to a tee with him
Speaker 4: with his big smile after the sentence. Yep, yep, that's
Speaker 4: I'd heard all the stories about Keith before I had
Speaker 4: moved up there, and I had never seen him, so
Speaker 4: I didn't know what to expect. I thought he was
Speaker 4: going to be about six ' four, probably a big
Speaker 4: beer belly with a dip of snuff in.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And when I knocked on his door that first time
Speaker 4: and he opened it up, I had to look down
Speaker 4: to him. He's a little bitty, scrawny guy. Yeah, But
Speaker 4: I mean he is wiry, and he's a very good wrestler.
Speaker 4: He's extremely tough. He's one of the toughest guys I've
Speaker 4: ever met.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I believe that. Now, why do you say that,
Speaker 1: like like tough and like is it from his hunting,
Speaker 1: Because that's what I picked up quick. Jeff gave us
Speaker 1: a little bit of a heads up. He said, Man,
Speaker 1: Keith is one of the best elk hunters that you know,
Speaker 1: he says, I know, but meeting Keith within ten minutes
Speaker 1: of talking to him, and it's not because he was
Speaker 1: telling me all his accolades. It's not like that. But
Speaker 1: you know, I just like read this guy is a
Speaker 1: is a master just outdoorsman. Yeah, nine year dogs.
Speaker 6: And so me and Austin have a joke that we
Speaker 6: really want to go l hunting with him one of
Speaker 6: these days. And keep in mind he's in his seventies
Speaker 6: and I'm thinking we still have another fifteen years before
Speaker 6: we can keep up with him.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he's he's sixty nine. Oh there, he actually
Speaker 1: corrected me, mister Keith, So sorry, Keith is sixty nine.
Speaker 1: I said he was in his early seventies. But yeah,
Speaker 1: he's he's he's longer. Yeah, sixteen years, Yeah, sixteen.
Speaker 4: He's one of the hardest working guys I've ever been around.
Speaker 4: You know, Jeff, Joe, Hank both can tell you that
Speaker 4: in every aspect of his life he was like that.
Speaker 4: He was all the way in, He's going to do
Speaker 4: everything one hundred and ten percent. He did his game
Speaker 4: warden job that way, he did the paddle for Center
Speaker 4: that way. And I don't think anybody else could have
Speaker 4: done that paddle for center and made it work the way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the thing that stands out about him,
Speaker 3: and I've told him this and that if you look
Speaker 3: at literally when he was working and even now, you
Speaker 3: could say the name Keith Green in eastern Oklahoma, everybody
Speaker 3: knew it. All the poachers knew him, all of you know, everybody,
Speaker 3: and he has that he and it was because of
Speaker 3: his work ethic, And it's one of those things that
Speaker 3: I've told younger guys. I'm like, if when you retire,
Speaker 3: if you can have name recognition like Keith Green, did
Speaker 3: you know? And I'm sure he told you he has
Speaker 3: a brother that still is a game warden okay with
Speaker 3: us and the Green Boys. You know, that's that's what
Speaker 3: everybody referred him to him as. But Keith was just
Speaker 3: he's just that kind of guy that that everybody knew him.
Speaker 3: And uh, and not always in a good way. I
Speaker 3: mean he caught lots of bad guys and and and
Speaker 3: you go work with him, you know. When I came
Speaker 3: on in ninety two, Uh, he was about two counties away,
Speaker 3: but I did every every day I could go work
Speaker 3: with him, I would and you would learn more in
Speaker 3: a day with him than you would with ten game warnings. Yes,
Speaker 3: that kind of guy.
Speaker 1: I appreciated a story that he told about his dad,
Speaker 1: you know, and it it it fits so well in
Speaker 1: with a lot of the stories that we've told here
Speaker 1: about you know, he just said, my dad, my dad
Speaker 1: was a poacher and and uh, and he he clarified
Speaker 1: more some things he kind of had to take out
Speaker 1: just for time. But you know, his dad wasn't wasn't
Speaker 1: a bad guy. It was just the time period. And
Speaker 1: and but but the fact that he he said that
Speaker 1: was such a important piece of his career, was understanding
Speaker 1: that just because somebody breaks the game law, they're not
Speaker 1: a terrible person.
Speaker 3: And uh.
Speaker 1: And that that theme, I mean, Keith, I never listened
Speaker 1: to Bargerags podcast, I'm sure, but that theme has been
Speaker 1: inside of so much stuff that we've done, and not
Speaker 1: even on purpose, like I've not set out to make
Speaker 1: that point to people. It just feels like it comes
Speaker 1: up and inside the climate of today, like with like
Speaker 1: extreme polarization, in every possible scenario, it's like either good
Speaker 1: or you are terrible. And it's like there's there's quite
Speaker 1: a bit of there's some gray area in there, not
Speaker 1: not gray with the law, not not not okay, you're
Speaker 1: not okay to break the law. That's not what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: but just in terms of you know, him saying you
Speaker 1: could be a decent person to make a mistake, but
Speaker 1: how how that informed the way that he dealt with people,
Speaker 1: which I think is good for us to hear about
Speaker 1: you guys, because I mean a lot of times game
Speaker 1: boardens have I mean, whether they earned it or not,
Speaker 1: the reputation is there that you know get you know,
Speaker 1: any law enforcement is just out to just tack people
Speaker 1: down to the ground, which is not true, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: I've not found that to be true in my life
Speaker 1: at all.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: One of the unique phenomena that comes out sometimes in
Speaker 5: your podcast, like you were saying, is that when we
Speaker 5: start doing these investigations and they go for days on end,
Speaker 5: weeks on end, months on end, or maybe even a year,
Speaker 5: you know, you have a lot of time invested in
Speaker 5: these investigations and you really get into the weeds with
Speaker 5: these people as far as their you know, their habits,
Speaker 5: what they do, what they don't do. Sometimes you know,
Speaker 5: you're you're proven to a lot of information that's outside
Speaker 5: of the realm of wildlife, and you become you know,
Speaker 5: after a while, you get a glimpse into their lives
Speaker 5: and you realize that they're they're the same as you
Speaker 5: and I. You know, they they live their lives. It's
Speaker 5: just that they've made some choices along the way that
Speaker 5: has let them down this path that you know makes you,
Speaker 5: you know, have to come in contact with them. And
Speaker 5: it doesn't make them a bad person at all, if
Speaker 5: in fact, anything, you're you're more drawn into them as
Speaker 5: a as a you know, you I know, it sounds
Speaker 5: weird that you you care for that person after a
Speaker 5: while because you've spent so much time investigating and working
Speaker 5: on the case, and you know, in the end, after
Speaker 5: they've been adjudicated, it seems like, uh, you know, you
Speaker 5: want to keep And there's lots of folks that I've
Speaker 5: come in contact with the past that have investigations and
Speaker 5: things like that, and still to this day, I consider
Speaker 5: my friend just the same way that Keith, you know,
Speaker 5: saw Billy was the same way. Yeah, and uh, And
Speaker 5: it's just I think that's one phenomena as far, and
Speaker 5: I think it's in all in law enforcement. I don't
Speaker 5: think it's unique in game board work that you know,
Speaker 5: the more time you spend undercover or the more time
Speaker 5: you spend with someone or investigating someone, you know, you
Speaker 5: get a glimpse into that, into their line, and I
Speaker 5: just I think it's unique, you know.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, So I hired on, I said, I hired
Speaker 6: On into Fish Division, right, and talking about Keith, when
Speaker 6: I met him, he was in game Ward and he
Speaker 6: was already moved over and he was running the Battlefish Center.
Speaker 6: So I started February first of two thousand and eight
Speaker 6: and the Paddlefish I knew nothing about. I'd seen Paddlefish before,
Speaker 6: but on February fifteenth of two thousand and eighties when
Speaker 6: the Paddlefish Center opened and they said go to Miama
Speaker 6: and you're going to be up there for three months,
Speaker 6: and I mean we were there from daylight to dark
Speaker 6: every day. Keith again, Austin said it, and you said
Speaker 6: it on the podcast last week that or I think
Speaker 6: Jeff Brown said that that program would not have made
Speaker 6: it without Keith. He was one hundred and ten percent.
Speaker 6: I mean I saw him wearing the same clothes day
Speaker 6: after day after day. Because like they said, nobody expected
Speaker 6: it to be like it was, right, but during this time,
Speaker 6: I always wanted to be a game wardening, being law enforcement.
Speaker 6: I'm hearing these rumors about Keith, And when you hear
Speaker 6: one or two rumors about a game warden or even
Speaker 6: any law enforcement, Okay, that probably didn't happen that way.
Speaker 6: But when you hear two hundred and you hear stories
Speaker 6: about Keith Green wearing a dress and a wig at
Speaker 6: the Miama Park because everybody knew him and he had
Speaker 6: to be undercover, and.
Speaker 8: That I wasn't there.
Speaker 6: I can't. I can't speak to being there. But I
Speaker 6: did see him at the Paddlefish Center one day. Some
Speaker 6: guys come in, and I believe the story about the
Speaker 6: dress and the wig because he was in an apron
Speaker 6: and came out and got his gun belt on in
Speaker 6: an apron because he was back there making caviar and
Speaker 6: he writes guys a ticket in the parking lot, and
Speaker 6: so I have to believe that there's some truth to
Speaker 6: the dress and the wig thing. For him to be
Speaker 6: under cover, is that.
Speaker 1: I mean, is that a true story?
Speaker 5: I know for a fact that he has worn wigs. No,
Speaker 5: I don't know about the dress part.
Speaker 3: I've seen.
Speaker 1: Anywhere. If he was dressed like a woman. Don't you
Speaker 1: smile at me?
Speaker 5: And he does have a smile. He smiles just like Apostle.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, to digress a little bit, I can
Speaker 3: remember going over to his house the first time, and
Speaker 3: he was still a game warden, and his dad was there,
Speaker 3: and and he's one of the first guys I ever
Speaker 3: met that he like lived like this dream world that
Speaker 3: I wanted to be. And you know, I mean there
Speaker 3: over there'd be a pile of coner bear traps over here,
Speaker 3: and there'd be fourteen bird dogs running around, and and
Speaker 3: he'd talked about going fishing in his pond. But right
Speaker 3: that's literally right in his backyard. You know, that's just
Speaker 3: full of big fish and and he just he's he's
Speaker 3: lived that life and and not just normal size elk.
Speaker 3: He's not just I'm talking Boone and Crocodt elk all
Speaker 3: over his house. Yeah, and he was just I was
Speaker 3: just mesmerized by the I mean I can remember literally
Speaker 3: sitting there right now. I can remember walking into his
Speaker 3: house for the first time and thinking, that's kind of
Speaker 3: game warding I want to be. Yeah, when I grew up.
Speaker 9: Yeah, Yeah, he's hard to get ahold of it.
Speaker 4: I call him all the time, and uh like he
Speaker 4: doesn't answer and he'll call me back, Hey, Keith, what
Speaker 4: you doing all I'm in New Mexico turkey hunting. Or
Speaker 4: I called him after the podcast episode or the podcast aired. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I said, no, Hey, Keith, what did you think of
Speaker 4: the podcast? I thought you did a great job. He said, all,
Speaker 4: I'm doing pretty good. I'm down here to lose in.
Speaker 4: I just put a red fish in the cooler. He's
Speaker 4: all over all the time. He loves life.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Now those guys are probably he and his brother
Speaker 5: are some of the hardest working people you've ever seen.
Speaker 5: And it would be I know it sounds weird that,
Speaker 5: you know, it's hard to keep up with him, and
Speaker 5: we joke about that and all that, but it's it
Speaker 5: is the absolute truth. I mean, they will work circles
Speaker 5: around people. It's it's crazy how they're just I would
Speaker 5: hate to say infatuated, but they're just you know, they're
Speaker 5: they're hundred and ten percent, like Austin said, with whatever
Speaker 5: they're doing. And yeah, I fished with the with Larry
Speaker 5: and then before and it's and it just wears me
Speaker 5: out to be around them. But you have such a
Speaker 5: great time but those guys are just so intense and
Speaker 5: their their experts at their craft. Yeah it's amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 5: well it was. I just was with him for a
Speaker 5: couple of hours.
Speaker 1: But everything you're saying just it confirms what I what,
Speaker 1: I what I felt, what I was with him. But yeah,
Speaker 1: incredible guy. So our our well, Hank, Any anything stand
Speaker 1: out to you in the podcast.
Speaker 3: Like, uh yeah, so one one thing that really stood
Speaker 3: out that I had never heard I was with them
Speaker 3: when we caught wisherd that Oh you were there. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I was there.
Speaker 1: Oh man, I was gonna ask any.
Speaker 3: Crazy thing was though my wife and I we were
Speaker 3: we're driving, We're driving down to a ranch last night,
Speaker 3: listened and I kicked it on. We started listening. She
Speaker 3: was just mesmerized. She had never heard She knows all
Speaker 3: these players, but had never heard a lot of these stories.
Speaker 3: And I started listening to his story the first night.
Speaker 3: I didn't know about that, and I'm thinking that is
Speaker 3: nothing like what happened, because I it, I wasn't there
Speaker 3: for that night and I'm thinking this, there was like
Speaker 3: seven or eight of us, and so anyway, I realized
Speaker 3: when he said I let him go, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 3: this has been twenty five years ago or what. But yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, that was one of that night. I'll never
Speaker 3: forget it, and I'll it was one of those nights
Speaker 3: where I really felt like I was being a game warden.
Speaker 3: I mean we met, it was kind of I was
Speaker 3: called like at the last minute, not going to give
Speaker 3: you any details, meet us here, and we all drove
Speaker 3: down to you'd literally have to drive through about two
Speaker 3: counties to get to the backside of that area where
Speaker 3: those guys had put in. And I can remember walking
Speaker 3: through the woods there was I would say, trying to
Speaker 3: remember six or seven guys, maybe eight. We were walking
Speaker 3: through the woods, all camoed out the whole nine yards
Speaker 3: and thinking, like Keith said, that they weren't they would
Speaker 3: be taking out there later. And we heard that that
Speaker 3: that undeniable sound of metal chain hitting a metal boat.
Speaker 1: Now is it dark yet? Oh yeah, so you know
Speaker 1: they're going to pull out in the dark.
Speaker 3: Well, but the thought the thought was was that they
Speaker 3: were not. They would not be putting in there. You know,
Speaker 3: Keith was talking about they thought they were putting it
Speaker 3: in one place on the other side of the river,
Speaker 3: on the Wagner County side, and bringing out on the
Speaker 3: on what would be the east side of the river.
Speaker 3: It makes a big bend, but it's kind of north
Speaker 3: and south, but it's the east west part of the river.
Speaker 3: And we were on the east side and thinking that
Speaker 3: they would A truck was going to be coming in,
Speaker 3: so we were going to get all in position watch
Speaker 3: the truck come in and unload the fish. They're unloading
Speaker 3: the boat. When we got there, we can hear them unloading,
Speaker 3: and so Jeff and I were probably the youngest guys there.
Speaker 3: There was there was when when would this event? Ninety
Speaker 3: six fish and so we heard the boat take off
Speaker 3: to go run the nets, and so Jeff and I
Speaker 3: got tasked with basically hiking down the shore and trying
Speaker 3: to get a view of them. And we and I
Speaker 3: don't know if it's something that they mentioned, but we
Speaker 3: think kind of what happened was there's there's a long
Speaker 3: island that kind of obscures if you were on the
Speaker 3: other side of the river, you couldn't see, you know,
Speaker 3: it's a it's a long island that's really close to
Speaker 3: the to the east shore. We think they come up
Speaker 3: into that area to to process those fish. You know,
Speaker 3: they'd caught them wherever, and they'd come up into that
Speaker 3: area that protected you. You know, if you were on
Speaker 3: the other shore, if a game warden was on there
Speaker 3: looking over you, you couldn't have seen anything. You just
Speaker 3: saw a boat disappear. And then you know, thirty minutes
Speaker 3: later come out and we're watching them and I can't
Speaker 3: I was trying to remember last night, if what I
Speaker 3: could remember my mind eye on what if I can
Speaker 3: you know, I think Jeff may have had some We
Speaker 3: had binoculars and it was somewhat moon lit, and you
Speaker 3: could you could tell kind of what they have had lights.
Speaker 3: I don't remember seeing any like probably not these they
Speaker 3: just worked it in the.
Speaker 2: Dark and uh nets or were a snag they were
Speaker 2: nets Mitz gil ntz Yes, yeah.
Speaker 3: And uh and then it you know, this whole deal
Speaker 3: may have taken an hour, and we're on communication with
Speaker 3: Keith and we tell them and and they actually got
Speaker 3: back to the ramp before we could get back to
Speaker 3: before we could get there, you know, all the other
Speaker 3: guys were there and we were having to hike.
Speaker 1: Waiting and buy their truck. Yeah, so you had their truck. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they had them.
Speaker 3: They were caught, but that was kind of that was
Speaker 3: probably one of the first uh big captures. You know.
Speaker 3: There there were some other players and we could we
Speaker 3: probably get to that as the day goes on, but
Speaker 3: uh that that was one of my first experiences. I'd
Speaker 3: been out western Oklahoma and just gotten back into eastern
Speaker 3: Oklahoma and and and was getting re entered. It was
Speaker 3: like it was, I can remember it.
Speaker 1: So I was gonna ask if any of you guys
Speaker 1: knew Billy Wishard.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so I don't know him.
Speaker 6: So I worked with him at thettle Fish Center. So,
Speaker 6: like I say, I started the first year there and
Speaker 6: uh me wanted to be a game board and I
Speaker 6: set lots of days for hours and he would explain
Speaker 6: why they picked when they went, the conditions that they
Speaker 6: would wait on, I mean the nights that they thought
Speaker 6: the game warden was going to be at home, curled up.
Speaker 8: Oh yeah.
Speaker 6: And as a matter of fact, it's kind of a
Speaker 6: funny deal. And I guess we can say this now.
Speaker 6: When he knew I went to be a game warden.
Speaker 6: The next time I saw him, he said, you know,
Speaker 6: I made two game wardens game warden the year in Oklahoma.
Speaker 6: He said, for a price, I may go back to
Speaker 6: Nett and make you game.
Speaker 2: So the stuff that he was telling you, Cody, I
Speaker 2: mean you used that absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 6: You know he talked about a real because there I
Speaker 6: don't know the boat.
Speaker 8: I wasn't there.
Speaker 6: That was heck, not to show Hank's age, but I
Speaker 6: think I was in the elementary school when that happened.
Speaker 8: But but they were.
Speaker 1: Thirty years old. I don't know what you're talking.
Speaker 6: They were using small boats a lot of the times.
Speaker 6: He said, they wouldn't even use a motor if they
Speaker 6: could help it, if they could just paddle out there.
Speaker 6: And he wanted a windy, cloudy night, sleep hail, you
Speaker 6: know the word nasty it was. And then the more
Speaker 6: time that they thought that a game warden was going
Speaker 6: to be at home by the fire was the day
Speaker 6: they would do that. And it's funny to hear him
Speaker 6: and Keith sit there because Billy talked about a lot
Speaker 6: of nights that Keith caught him but didn't know he
Speaker 6: caught him. Yeah, what do you mean, Well, like he
Speaker 6: talks about one night he had a guy that was
Speaker 6: a lookout and Keith drove up and there was a
Speaker 6: car backed into some weeds and Billy was in the
Speaker 6: back seat of I think it was a station wagon.
Speaker 6: But he was screening eggs in the back of that truck.
Speaker 6: Will He said, the headlights hit the car that he
Speaker 6: was in and he had that lookout and for whatever reason,
Speaker 6: he said, that lookout was wearing like nice clothes. And
Speaker 6: Keith got out and talked to him for a second
Speaker 6: and said, are you here to meet a woman? And
Speaker 6: he said yes I am. He said, well, I'll leave
Speaker 6: you to your business, and he got back in this
Speaker 6: truck and left, and Billy was screening eggs in the
Speaker 6: back of that car.
Speaker 8: Oh wow, it was funny to hear.
Speaker 6: You know, Keith never knew that he had caught him
Speaker 6: that night, but Billy's telling him those stories and.
Speaker 1: Wow, So what was what was Billy Wisher like?
Speaker 2: Then?
Speaker 1: Let me give it, let me frame the question a
Speaker 1: little bit better. Keith said, Billy had like sold caviare
Speaker 1: in New York. And then you hear that Billy was
Speaker 1: making a ton of money. It At first I just
Speaker 1: felt like, uh, I mean, he was just like a
Speaker 1: you know, for I mean, this is a term of
Speaker 1: endearment to me, so I can say it just like
Speaker 1: a like a dirt poor country boy.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 1: But then it's like, well, shoot, if this guy had
Speaker 1: been doing this for years making half a million dollars,
Speaker 1: like maybe this guy's driving like nice cars and.
Speaker 6: No, I could take you to the house that he
Speaker 6: lived in and you would have never guessed it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, he just a just a good old boy.
Speaker 5: I mean, shut old, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: He would remind me a little bit of Brea. Yeah,
Speaker 5: a little bit not you know, sure, no.
Speaker 1: Criminal looking at.
Speaker 5: No, he just a good old boy.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 6: He did talk about when him and his wife went
Speaker 6: and met some caviar buyer and I don't remember where
Speaker 6: it was at his big city, New York City or
Speaker 6: Los Ange, somewhere big, and they picked him up at
Speaker 6: the airport in the limousine and and all this stuff,
Speaker 6: and he was like country boy goes to the big city,
Speaker 6: as the lady described it, you know.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, uh that that that part of the
Speaker 1: story surprised me. I didn't know anything about Billy. And uh,
Speaker 1: the fact that he he came back to work for
Speaker 1: the department, I mean, such a rare story. I wonder
Speaker 1: how many times something like that, I mean maybe never.
Speaker 2: It's like this crazy old movie you see where they
Speaker 2: the guy finally gets out of prison for being a
Speaker 2: safe cracker, and then the government sends a helicopter in
Speaker 2: there to the outreaches of Colorado when he's out there
Speaker 2: trying to fish, like we need you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like in Rambo part two. Yeah, when they when
Speaker 1: Rambo's in prison and Colonel Troutman goes back to get
Speaker 1: to get Rambo and says, you're the only one who
Speaker 1: can do it.
Speaker 2: You're the only good John.
Speaker 5: We need you.
Speaker 2: But but Bill story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's wild.
Speaker 2: Because they did. They said they interviewed folks nationwide. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and they got the one guy that lit the fuse
Speaker 2: on the whole thing. Yeah, to work there. It's pretty
Speaker 2: it's pretty cool, Joe.
Speaker 1: What stood out to you any anything stand out to
Speaker 1: you in the podcast or just all stories you're pretty familiar.
Speaker 5: With, right, Yeah, No, it's it. I thought the podcast
Speaker 5: was great and and it you know, it it ended
Speaker 5: on kind of a cliff finger. I was like, man,
Speaker 5: I wish I could hear about ten minutes more. I
Speaker 5: think this is what did you want to do? What
Speaker 5: did you want to hear? Well, I wanted I wanted
Speaker 5: to hear you know, the rest of the story just
Speaker 5: like Russian snacks. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because
Speaker 5: it it I know how it went, and I know
Speaker 5: you know, and it's there's a lot there.
Speaker 1: Well this this is a great place to tease the
Speaker 1: next episode. I've put a before you were here, I
Speaker 1: told these guys that we couldn't talk about Russians, and
Speaker 1: we happened to have a jersey here that says Russia. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they've all been, they've all been.
Speaker 3: Uh, it's a reminder.
Speaker 1: Yeah, hey you guys, you guys are welcome to come
Speaker 1: back when Jeff comes in two weeks to do thender
Speaker 1: after Russian snack. But no, that's that's great.
Speaker 7: He talked about in the department there are a lot
Speaker 7: of skeptics. Were any of you one of the skeptics?
Speaker 3: And you know this, this is something I was thinking
Speaker 3: about last night. And that's kind of a remembrance. When
Speaker 3: we went to Wichard's house. You got to you gotta
Speaker 3: remember that this was unheard of us getting all of
Speaker 3: these process eggs. I mean, it's I'm sure it had happened,
Speaker 3: but it it never happened to me, and obviously I
Speaker 3: don't think it had happened to a lot of folks.
Speaker 3: And we had you know, we had lieutenants out of
Speaker 3: a couple of different districts, and we're all standing and
Speaker 3: I can remember being out in the yard at his
Speaker 3: house and looking at each other, like what are we
Speaker 3: going to do with these eggs?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 3: You know, it's like, do we try to find a
Speaker 3: buyer for the state? Do we what do we do?
Speaker 3: And I truly listen to that podcast, I think there
Speaker 3: might have been that might have been a catalyst, you know,
Speaker 3: a segue for Keith, and Keith smarter than I am,
Speaker 3: he probably thought, you know, because we truly didn't know
Speaker 3: are we going to I mean, obviously we need to
Speaker 3: save them for evidence evidentiary reasons, but it was like
Speaker 3: we do we try to do something with them because.
Speaker 1: Like you're talking about on that first big.
Speaker 3: Guy, Yeah, the night we caught Richard, how many how much?
Speaker 3: Oh gosh, I don't remember, it was a boat load.
Speaker 3: I mean I would say three or four hundred pound,
Speaker 3: I don't it long as a bunch, and more at
Speaker 3: home and more at home. And and I had that
Speaker 3: thought after you said that, if I remember they were
Speaker 3: living in like a little mobile home at that time. Yeah,
Speaker 3: when we went to their house, that's I'm having to
Speaker 3: really reach back from that one. But it was, it
Speaker 3: wasn't you know, I don't remember it very well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, stand out in the yard.
Speaker 1: You know some of the commentary I got just in
Speaker 1: the last couple of days, and I maybe could have
Speaker 1: clarified a little bit more that this was the first
Speaker 1: program in the country to do this, and now a
Speaker 1: bunch of states have adopted this. And if just if
Speaker 1: you hadn't listened to the area, don't remember. You know,
Speaker 1: what we're talking about is the people donating eggs and
Speaker 1: then the state Game agency processes and sells the eggs
Speaker 1: basically on the global caviar market. And at the time,
Speaker 1: Oklahoma was the first one to do that, and today
Speaker 1: a lot of people are doing Is that right?
Speaker 6: No, Oklahoma wasn't the first to do it. They were
Speaker 6: the first to do it voluntarily. In Montana and North Dakota,
Speaker 6: they had a thousand fish limit and it was the
Speaker 6: law that you had to bring your fish to the
Speaker 6: table and cut the ox out of it. So there's
Speaker 6: a I don't know if I should have to cut
Speaker 6: this out. But there was a doctor Scarnekia from University
Speaker 6: of Idaho that was our consultant in Oklahoma to start
Speaker 6: that program, and he did it. He was up there
Speaker 6: in Montana and North Dakota working on there. But in
Speaker 6: the below Lake Sakakawea, I think, as how you've pronounced
Speaker 6: it some it's on the border of North Dakota and Montana,
Speaker 6: below the dam. That's the only place in the entire
Speaker 6: state that you can snag a battlefish the way I
Speaker 6: understand it. And when the thousandth fish hit the table,
Speaker 6: they sounded a siren, and even if you had a
Speaker 6: fish on you had to release that fish. The season
Speaker 6: was over. But every fish that was caught there had
Speaker 6: to go to that table, and that's what Keith Green
Speaker 6: and Brent Gordon, the other paddlefish guy, they use that
Speaker 6: as kind of a model. But we were the first
Speaker 6: state to do it voluntarily. You didn't have to bring
Speaker 6: your fish to the center, but up there you did.
Speaker 6: The law said I had to be checked in at
Speaker 6: that center. So yes, we were the first to do
Speaker 6: it the way we did it, but we weren't really
Speaker 6: the first to process eggs and sell them as a
Speaker 6: state agencies.
Speaker 1: I understood, So why aren't they still doing that today?
Speaker 1: And I didn't really get into it on this podcast.
Speaker 1: But so today that program is not is not going.
Speaker 1: It ended a few years.
Speaker 6: Ago COVID happened, and I know that that year they
Speaker 6: processed a lot fewer fish. And if you look at
Speaker 6: the amount of data they got over how many years
Speaker 6: was it fifteen years that they did that, there's enough
Speaker 6: data for the next one hundred years. It'll take them
Speaker 6: to analyze that.
Speaker 8: Truly. They don't need the as the day and there.
Speaker 1: Were the core mission of it was paddlefish research.
Speaker 2: It wasn't money, right, no, no, it wasn't.
Speaker 5: Now as a byproduct, it generated a lot of money. Sure,
Speaker 5: but the longer that program ran, the lower the the
Speaker 5: historical prices of caviar went. And so you know, it's
Speaker 5: a commodity just like corn or whatever. You know, if
Speaker 5: you think about it, and so you know the fluctuation
Speaker 5: and the price of beef for the price of corn, well,
Speaker 5: the price of caviar, you know, it fluctuates as well.
Speaker 5: And over time that has decreased.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: When the program kicked off, caviar was it was like
Speaker 5: you know gold, I mean it really was. But nowadays,
Speaker 5: you know, you can buy caviar a lot cheaper than
Speaker 5: you could fifteen years ago.
Speaker 1: Do you guys like caviar?
Speaker 5: It's an acquired taste.
Speaker 8: Really, I haven't acquired.
Speaker 2: It acquired.
Speaker 1: You you like it?
Speaker 3: Hank, Yeah, it's not. I mean I don't crave it,
Speaker 3: but I don't mind Cracker.
Speaker 1: Can you understand why people go so crazy about it? No,
Speaker 1: you really don't know. Am I going to be unimpressed
Speaker 1: when I have?
Speaker 3: Probably? It's it's like if you think of the fishiest
Speaker 3: fish you've ever eaten, that's what it's going to taste like.
Speaker 2: You're out, misty out.
Speaker 3: If you're not into fishy fish, you're you're it's not
Speaker 3: you're not.
Speaker 1: Did you hear that guy from California describe Yeah? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean when he described it's just like, wow, that's.
Speaker 2: The way I describe what a baked coon tastes like.
Speaker 2: Somebody when they asked, I thought I could see myself
Speaker 2: in a little suit.
Speaker 1: Wah, little minerality. You taste the you can taste the
Speaker 1: ach earthiness.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yes, by the way, you soil.
Speaker 6: You talked to Keith Green and him and his brother
Speaker 6: They had to kick him out of the Problem System
Speaker 6: room a couple of times because they eat too much
Speaker 6: caviar and they say, well, it tastes like salty butter. Well,
Speaker 6: when I started, it was like eighty dollars an ounce
Speaker 6: country crock and some salt, whole lot.
Speaker 8: In caviar.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Keith said he loved it. Yeah, those guys they do.
Speaker 5: They enjoy it. And you know, it's like I said,
Speaker 5: it's acquired taste. And just like Cody said, it's you know,
Speaker 5: it would remind you of salty butter, maybe with a
Speaker 5: hint of fishiness to it. I know several times they'll
Speaker 5: have it at that when the processing center was up
Speaker 5: and going, you know, they'd have digg and taries and
Speaker 5: stuff come in and they would show off the paddlefish
Speaker 5: center and everything, and I just take a little, you know,
Speaker 5: piece of old square white bread and I'd take a
Speaker 5: big doll up and throw it on there and smear
Speaker 5: it on the white bread and eat that just like
Speaker 5: butter and bread.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: Is that square square white wonder bread right there probably
Speaker 5: cost one hundred and fifty dollars, you know, but it yeah,
Speaker 5: you know, it's just a it's acquired taste. To me,
Speaker 5: it just tastes like butter, you know, butter. Yeah, it
Speaker 5: just has a real buttery, soft consistency. Have you had
Speaker 5: other Have you had sturgeon caviar? I've had an other caviar.
Speaker 5: I don't know if it was sturgeon, and it seemed
Speaker 5: to be a lot saltier than this type of caviar.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So my brother and I eat it, eat it.
Speaker 2: What kind of caviar come out of a blue gill brim.
Speaker 1: Come out of Oklahoma? Brought over the state line.
Speaker 2: No, we was fishing down on the on the river,
Speaker 2: almost got him. We called them on my game. Bro.
Speaker 2: We caught a big mess of fish.
Speaker 1: And we tell that stuff in Arkansas, you know.
Speaker 2: Commercial story to tell Misty And this is recorded cleaning
Speaker 2: fish on the back of the river, fishing and fry
Speaker 2: them up, and it was springing of the year. And
Speaker 2: bought them the big old blue gills. They had a
Speaker 2: bunch of eggs in them. And my brother said, you
Speaker 2: know what caviar is and I said, yeah, fish eggs.
Speaker 2: He said, this stuff is expensive. He said, let's eat this.
Speaker 2: I said, all right, we're gonna eat it. So we
Speaker 2: pulled them out and throwed it on the side and
Speaker 2: we got was frying fish. We're gonna have that as
Speaker 2: a little appetite as before we got cooking the fish
Speaker 2: and potaters in there, so we but he said, how
Speaker 2: you fix them? I said, I don't know. I guess
Speaker 2: they put meal on them in fry. That's the only
Speaker 2: way I know to fix them. So we rolled them
Speaker 2: around in the fit in.
Speaker 1: The corner, still in the eggsact they were.
Speaker 2: They was fishing to come out though, Yeah, were tough.
Speaker 2: We dropped We dropped them in there for our or
Speaker 2: to start our or DIRV cooking, and them rascals got
Speaker 2: to popping like a string of fire fryers. It was
Speaker 2: hot grease coming out of there. We look like we've
Speaker 2: been attacked by yellow jackets when it was over with, really,
Speaker 2: but there was enough to survive that we took a
Speaker 2: bite of them and it was not pleasant.
Speaker 1: Well there's even fried.
Speaker 2: I mean it tastes like fried corn meal. But it
Speaker 2: was a little mush in there.
Speaker 3: The texture is not to be attacking person.
Speaker 5: You know, they weren't exactly processed.
Speaker 2: No, but you got to let me tell you y'all
Speaker 2: before y'all go to drop them in the hot grease,
Speaker 2: Because I know it sounds so appetizing, but I just thought,
Speaker 2: what you were safety glasses because there's some.
Speaker 3: Hot cooking bacon neked.
Speaker 2: I assume he.
Speaker 1: Cooking bacon neked. That's gonna be the next shirt.
Speaker 5: Shirts and cut that part.
Speaker 1: That's funny. That's well, I've never had it. It seems like, well, okay,
Speaker 1: this is my next question. Are there do you think
Speaker 1: there's people in Oklahoma that have Sometimes people see a
Speaker 1: trend and they just jump on it because it's a
Speaker 1: trend all of a sudden. I mean, like me, like
Speaker 1: if I went paddlefishing today and caught a big female
Speaker 1: like I would be wanting to process the eggs and
Speaker 1: I don't just try it. A lot of people in
Speaker 1: Oklahoma keeping their three pounds of muskegs.
Speaker 6: Most of the people and I can't speak for them
Speaker 6: that I see are using it for blue cat bait.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Really, what are they doing put it in?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Exactly how they use it?
Speaker 3: Really?
Speaker 1: And they're not even even after yes, the state it's
Speaker 1: it's legal now you can use all of it for
Speaker 1: that up to.
Speaker 6: Ten pounds, and you can't have the eggs of more
Speaker 6: than one fish.
Speaker 1: Okay, on the podcast, did we say it correctly that
Speaker 1: you can only have three pounds of process.
Speaker 6: And that's if it's removed from the membrane.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's processed, and that would be I mean you
Speaker 1: would have to have that in like your freezer. I
Speaker 1: mean that would be like nobody's processing eggs on the
Speaker 1: like in the field.
Speaker 5: You can process, you can screen them in the field
Speaker 5: like that. Yeah, but you got to do something with
Speaker 5: them pretty quick.
Speaker 2: Explain to me what when you're talking about screening, tell
Speaker 2: me how that was.
Speaker 5: So imagine a screen similar to a screen door, but
Speaker 5: it's you know, the mesh is different sizes.
Speaker 8: Tennis tennis racket.
Speaker 5: Now, if you sifted that sort of thing like that, yeah,
Speaker 5: it'd be like that. But that membrane you've got to
Speaker 5: and it takes a special gentle touch because you can
Speaker 5: smash those eggs, you know, and they screen that right
Speaker 5: through them, right through that screen and the eggs come
Speaker 5: through the bottom. And basically you're just removing that membrane
Speaker 5: that surrounds that sack of eggs.
Speaker 6: Okay, you know, and the membrane so there's a blood
Speaker 6: vessel that goes to every egg and that's basically what
Speaker 6: you're removing from it is pushing it through that screen
Speaker 6: and not hard.
Speaker 8: It's a gentleness.
Speaker 2: Austin is handing me a picture here, I guess from
Speaker 2: the field that he's taken and it's like about the
Speaker 2: size of like small rabbit wire, looks like like hardware cloth.
Speaker 2: But you would you roll, you take them out of
Speaker 2: the membrane and then put the eggs on that push
Speaker 2: them through and then you catch them in a bucket
Speaker 2: or something.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you've got a bowl with water underneath there that
Speaker 5: you're catching them in. And then you know, you have
Speaker 5: to use if you're processing them, you have to use
Speaker 5: special salt that cannot have any chlorine in. Some of
Speaker 5: the ones that use this stuff the most and process
Speaker 5: it that it's a lot of the best salt comes
Speaker 5: from Russia.
Speaker 1: Salt comes from Russia.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, wow, I can show you some pictures of it.
Speaker 1: M interesting.
Speaker 2: Then you got it. I assume you keep it cool
Speaker 2: and you put it in the cool water.
Speaker 5: Right, so they basically they'll they'll drain them, you know,
Speaker 5: kind of like in a cheese cloth type deal.
Speaker 2: If you want to do, is it different like when
Speaker 2: and I'm sorry, what about you know you catch fish
Speaker 2: early in the year, blue gill and catfish, and you
Speaker 2: skin them and the eggs are real small, and they
Speaker 2: just turning yellow and they ain't got any blood or
Speaker 2: anything in them. Is it if you catch paddlefish that's
Speaker 2: got row in it? Is it good from if you
Speaker 2: got him? Or is it better a certain.
Speaker 8: November.
Speaker 6: I'd say November to the time they get ready to
Speaker 6: dump their eggs, it's good, okay once It's kind of
Speaker 6: a funny deal. And I don't know if Keith talked
Speaker 6: about the process or not. When they really start spawning good.
Speaker 6: The females that would come in, they've coated the eggs
Speaker 6: with like a membrane. And if they were to that
Speaker 6: point where they had coated the eggs in a membrane
Speaker 6: and started to broadcast their eggs, once you salted them
Speaker 6: they turned the milk. Something happens with that salt and
Speaker 6: whatever they were coating them with. If they were right
Speaker 6: at the point of spawning, they were not. You couldn't
Speaker 6: make them into kafarkhal prior to.
Speaker 1: That, so later you could you could have one that.
Speaker 6: And I couldn't tell you what that timeframe is, but
Speaker 6: a day maybe two days, when they were ready to
Speaker 6: do it. Something happened to those eggs. Where as soon
Speaker 6: as you put salt to them. It just turned to
Speaker 6: like a gray, milky mess.
Speaker 1: So, do you guys have any any good stories?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 1: You know, we just had this like kind of little
Speaker 1: highlight on Billy Wishart and and I know there's probably
Speaker 1: a bunch more any other unique stories of catching paddlefish? Guys?
Speaker 8: Sold you want me to tell the basketball story.
Speaker 5: It's probably one of the most reasons this is basketball.
Speaker 8: Basketball.
Speaker 6: Okay, Well, I think it was two paddlefish seasons ago,
Speaker 6: is that right?
Speaker 8: It wasn't last year was two years ago.
Speaker 6: I'm just out working and had some guides come in
Speaker 6: and I'm checking them as they walk off the boat
Speaker 6: ramp and this little I don't know how he was eight, nine,
Speaker 6: ten years old kid. As soon as I walk up
Speaker 6: to the family, there was nine of them. The kid
Speaker 6: immediately says, sir, we know, we know that we can't
Speaker 6: leave the state with eggs. Well that's that's a clue.
Speaker 2: I hate kids, Yeah, we love but.
Speaker 6: So you know me, I find out that they were
Speaker 6: from another state, obviously on the East coast, and uh,
Speaker 6: I've realized that the only reason that little nine year
Speaker 6: old kid knew what was going on is because mom
Speaker 6: and dad had been talking about that the whole way here.
Speaker 6: So we started checking into them, figuring out We ended
Speaker 6: up figuring out where they were staying, which is a
Speaker 6: place up on Grand Lake, a resort. Well that was
Speaker 6: probably an hour and a half from where I was at.
Speaker 6: So I called Riley Willman, one of our game wardens,
Speaker 6: up there, and I said, hey, do you mind driving
Speaker 6: up there? And I'm trying to corroborate whether or not
Speaker 6: they are staying there or not. I said, just run
Speaker 6: up there and if you see a white Dodge Duly
Speaker 6: pickup truck show up here in the next hour and
Speaker 6: a half, let me know and then we'll get the
Speaker 6: cavalry and we'll show up.
Speaker 1: So did they Were they suspicious to you other than that?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 8: I don't know, no, no, no, okay.
Speaker 6: So so Riley goes up there and he gets in
Speaker 6: the resort and he decides there's a little cafe at
Speaker 6: the resort. He just goes and gets him some French
Speaker 6: fries and he's eating. Well, he sees the Dodge pull in,
Speaker 6: and I told him hang out there until I get there,
Speaker 6: and we you know, we're going to watch him and
Speaker 6: see what they're doing and all that. Well, there's some
Speaker 6: kids playing basketball and the resort at the basketball little
Speaker 6: parking lot, and Riley goes out there and starts playing
Speaker 6: basketball with him. That's a good undercover deal. You know,
Speaker 6: he's in playing.
Speaker 1: Clothes, he's in plain clothes.
Speaker 6: He's playing basketball with him. And he said, within five minutes,
Speaker 6: this little kid, I'm guessing it was the same little
Speaker 6: nine year old.
Speaker 8: He didn't know that.
Speaker 6: He just saw some kids out there playing basketball. And
Speaker 6: he says, well, do you guys like to fish? Oh,
Speaker 6: we love to fish. That's why we're here. We've been
Speaker 6: paddle fishing. And me and my dad we love caviar
Speaker 6: and we have a bunch of it in our cabin.
Speaker 6: And so Riley has to go to the bathroom or whatever,
Speaker 6: leaves and calls me on the phone. He says, dude,
Speaker 6: you're not going to boa.
Speaker 2: What just happened.
Speaker 6: So we watched them all day. We watched them, you know,
Speaker 6: doing the process screen and eggs and all that. And
Speaker 6: then the next morning, we still watching them, waited on them.
Speaker 6: They loaded a brand new freezer they'd bought it lows
Speaker 6: in the back of that truck, plugged it in, and
Speaker 6: then they were leaving to leave the state. And I
Speaker 6: think seventy four pounds, and.
Speaker 8: They were all.
Speaker 6: We found out through the process of that that they
Speaker 6: had told some people that if they could get back
Speaker 6: home with it, they could sell. Then they packaged it
Speaker 6: in one pound containers. They could sell that for one
Speaker 6: hundred for four hundred dollars a pound.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 6: Wherever that where they were going back home?
Speaker 1: So you had to wait till they cross the state line.
Speaker 6: Though, well, you can't possess the eggs with the intent
Speaker 6: of leaving the state. Okay, so we didn't actually wait
Speaker 6: on them to cross the state, but a lot of
Speaker 6: time we wait on them to get they'll they'll pass
Speaker 6: the last exit and then on the highway. Well, there's
Speaker 6: no way they could say they were going to get
Speaker 6: off before they leave the state, and we stop them
Speaker 6: and do it that way.
Speaker 1: But wow, So that answer is part of my question.
Speaker 1: It feels like sometimes stuff comes like in and out
Speaker 1: of vogue of even being something that people try to
Speaker 1: get away with. And I wondered if all the publicity
Speaker 1: around caviar eggs and being illegal and all this, because
Speaker 1: you know, this has happened to a lot of other
Speaker 1: states too, you know, if people are still trying to
Speaker 1: get out of state with.
Speaker 6: It nothing like it was. I started up there in
Speaker 6: twenty eleven and that was the tail end of it.
Speaker 6: I'd say I got in three or four years, nothing
Speaker 6: like these guys did. But I know, uh, we've talked
Speaker 6: to some guys and obviously when I started to now,
Speaker 6: our regulations are a million times more strict than they were.
Speaker 6: And we I asked a guy one time that used
Speaker 6: to when I started, we'd se him ten times a year,
Speaker 6: every year, and I hadn't seen him in five years,
Speaker 6: and I asked him, why why aren't you here? And
Speaker 6: he was a Russian that you know, from Russia or
Speaker 6: one of the Russian speaking countries, and he said, you
Speaker 6: guys made it too tough on us.
Speaker 8: So whatever we did worked.
Speaker 6: You know, a lot of them have figured out that
Speaker 6: it's just not worth their time because the laws.
Speaker 8: Of yeah obviously changed.
Speaker 1: But yeah, interesting, that's a good story, and any other
Speaker 1: good Paddlevish bus stories.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we were in when you were talking about crossing
Speaker 3: the state line. You know, during that time, there were
Speaker 3: it seems like that I can remember there were about
Speaker 3: four or five names, most of them were family names
Speaker 3: that we would deal with that were that were in
Speaker 3: the paddlefish trade, the caviar trade. But one guy, actually
Speaker 3: he was kind of a solo and he we got
Speaker 3: on his track when he was coming up Highway fifty
Speaker 3: nine between the little town of Stillwell and Salasaw, there's
Speaker 3: a big hill they call it the Slide, and he
Speaker 3: had a camper load. The entire back of his truck
Speaker 3: was loaded with fresh water muscles. And I think, you know,
Speaker 3: looking back, even before my time, I don't know much
Speaker 3: about it, but I think that was kind of almost
Speaker 3: like a segue into muscle picking muscle keepers and we've
Speaker 3: we've gone you know, you know, the whole commercial end
Speaker 3: of it. You can't do it now. But they were
Speaker 3: so a trooper stopped him. He had actually broke down.
Speaker 3: Trooper comes in, talks to him and ends up getting
Speaker 3: a guy record to get him to the top of
Speaker 3: the hill and lets him go on. But he calls
Speaker 3: the game board and it's quoi, kind of like two
Speaker 3: o'clock in the morning. He said, hey, it's just kind
Speaker 3: of a weird deal. And so they end up they
Speaker 3: we ended up finding the truck and stopped him at
Speaker 3: when he crossed the state line at probably at Fort
Speaker 3: Smith and uh, and and and that was our that's
Speaker 3: the first meeting with this guy. He was kind of
Speaker 3: a bad element. He ended up, uh he was. There
Speaker 3: were several run ends with him, uh one, but it
Speaker 3: kind of all culminated with We knew he was paddle
Speaker 3: fishing and he lived over in the Wagner area, and
Speaker 3: one of our undercover guys had gotten word that he
Speaker 3: was going to be coming taking a big load of
Speaker 3: eggs out of state, and so we had then it
Speaker 3: was kind of the Feds were more involved than than
Speaker 3: they were on a lot of our stuff.
Speaker 2: But uh.
Speaker 3: Uh, our undercover guy was following him in this old
Speaker 3: Bronco and between Wagner and Salom Springs he turned off
Speaker 3: and would take a dirt road. Like fifteen times. We
Speaker 3: were on the phone and I was at sitting at
Speaker 3: Salem Springs like one of the first roads inside the
Speaker 3: state line in my game arden truck and waiting on
Speaker 3: him and this uh, this game board kept calling him.
Speaker 3: He's like, man, he's turned off again. I've lost him
Speaker 3: for a minute, and he would find him and and
Speaker 3: finally he got behind him about a mile out of
Speaker 3: Silom and he said he's coming, He's he's coming through
Speaker 3: and I stopped him about a mile into Arkansa and
Speaker 3: we got it. Finally got a pretty good prosecution on
Speaker 3: him that time.
Speaker 1: And he now what he had?
Speaker 2: Eggs?
Speaker 3: Oh, he had a hole truckload of processed eggs. Really. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we we ended up processing. That was the only time
Speaker 3: I've ever arrested him by an Arkansas So we we
Speaker 3: processed him at the Silent Springs Police department down there,
Speaker 3: Like what are you guys doing? So but uh, yeah,
Speaker 3: it was, it was. It was a memorable one interesting.
Speaker 6: So so the last part of that story, and I
Speaker 6: probably should have said this, when we stopped that truck,
Speaker 6: that little kid got out, the same little kid that
Speaker 6: had said we can't take eggs out of state, and
Speaker 6: the same kid that played basketball walked up because me
Speaker 6: and Riley were still in plain clothes driving unmarked vehicles,
Speaker 6: walked up to Riley and looked at his dad, said, hey,
Speaker 6: that's the guy we played basketball with yesterday.
Speaker 8: So we're not sure that kid made.
Speaker 2: It back to.
Speaker 8: Yes, we're looking for him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a long ride home for them.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 5: You got to love kids though, because they're you know,
Speaker 5: they're brutally on us. Yeah, you know, and sometimes it
Speaker 5: works out, sometimes it doesn't.
Speaker 9: For dead kids and ex wives are a gold.
Speaker 1: I bet so, I bet so. That's wild. So where
Speaker 1: would this guy have been selling? Like, where are they
Speaker 1: selling eggs today? Do you think people just have little markets?
Speaker 1: It's like like they just like know people that you know.
Speaker 3: We that's some of the stuff we deal with. They're
Speaker 3: like fish markets too, and and some of the bigger
Speaker 3: towns that we were constantly getting tips on that guys
Speaker 3: are going out and and uh and and gathering up
Speaker 3: fish to take to these bigger cities, a bigger fish market.
Speaker 3: And I'm sure there's still a somewhat of them if
Speaker 3: I remember there. At the time he was going, they
Speaker 3: had an informant who actually had told us that he
Speaker 3: was bringing him to him in like Tennessee or Kentucky.
Speaker 3: So that's how we knew where that he was going
Speaker 3: to leave that day. And he left right on time,
Speaker 3: but it took three hours to drive. You know, fifty minds.
Speaker 1: You know he's being followed.
Speaker 3: You things I think this guy was. I'll tell you,
Speaker 3: I'll give you a little glimpse into him. He did
Speaker 3: his homework, he actually so, So we have two game wardens.
Speaker 3: I guess we two game wardens and one of them
Speaker 3: retired in Sequoia County of brothers, and one of them
Speaker 3: was was out of in another district at the time,
Speaker 3: but he went by. He somehow found out that their
Speaker 3: mother worked at loves at Weber's falls on I forty
Speaker 3: went in and said that he was an Arkansas game
Speaker 3: warden and that he I know these guys and started
Speaker 3: talking to their mother and getting information about how they
Speaker 3: do and you know, where are they at now? And
Speaker 3: and she we finally pieced again leak some information. Mama
Speaker 3: leaked some information. But he's just that kind of guy.
Speaker 3: He I mean, there was some criminal element, you know,
Speaker 3: and that's that's that's the thing I think that that
Speaker 3: that makes this so much different is that you know,
Speaker 3: I mean, you're always we're always dealing with the things
Speaker 3: you think of as a game board, and whether it's
Speaker 3: a guy taking a little you know, an extra deer
Speaker 3: or they're chasing a turkey. But these are guys that
Speaker 3: were exploiting the resource and uh, you know, and some
Speaker 3: of them were involved in a lot of other stuff
Speaker 3: outside of Yeah, if you knew, if we really knew,
Speaker 3: you know, if they're picking up eggs and selling them
Speaker 3: adleegally in four states over they're probably and telling what they're.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they're not selling these eggs to Walmart, you know
Speaker 5: they're there. There's with each little culture, you know, there's
Speaker 5: there's an Asian culture and there's an Eastern European culture,
Speaker 5: and these these cultures of people are embedded, you know,
Speaker 5: within these rural communities around the US, and there's these
Speaker 5: little mom and pop markets and things like that that
Speaker 5: you'll see that are very unique, you know, to that
Speaker 5: specific culture, and you would be amazed at what you
Speaker 5: could buy in some.
Speaker 3: Of those.
Speaker 1: You saying that reminds me of gallbladder stuff with bears.
Speaker 1: I used to get bear bait from from an Asian
Speaker 1: guy that had a donut shop, and I was buying
Speaker 1: the donuts from him, and I was real. I was
Speaker 1: never I never lied to him ever, but I never
Speaker 1: really told him exactly what I was doing, just bought
Speaker 1: donuts from him. And one day he was like, we
Speaker 1: kind of became buddies and he was like you what
Speaker 1: are you doing with this stuff? And I was like, man,
Speaker 1: actually bear hunting, and his eyes just lit up and
Speaker 1: he said he literally was like, can you get me
Speaker 1: some gallbladders, and man, I you I was telling all
Speaker 1: y'all how paranoid I was.
Speaker 3: I was just like, how much they were?
Speaker 1: How much money you got? I was just like stop.
Speaker 1: But he had no idea, Like this guy, I guarantee
Speaker 1: you he would have He probably would have bought anything.
Speaker 1: I would have sold it and never even dreamt that
Speaker 1: it was illegal. Like this guy probably didn't even know
Speaker 1: there were bears in America, you know, And and and
Speaker 1: in his culture was such something something that was sought
Speaker 1: after and valued absolutely. And but to us, it's like
Speaker 1: this criminal ring. That's that's interesting to me when you
Speaker 1: see how and not the foreshadow too much into the
Speaker 1: Operation Russian Snag, but some of that was going on
Speaker 1: there too.
Speaker 4: I think now that was something I didn't really realize
Speaker 4: when I became a game word, and is how much
Speaker 4: interaction you had with different cultures. You know, we interact
Speaker 4: with like the mong culture, the Russian culture, the Hispanic culture,
Speaker 4: and it's a it's a variety of people that we
Speaker 4: deal with on a day to day basis. And I
Speaker 4: have learned a ton about worldwide cultures just doing this job.
Speaker 4: And that was something I never even dreamt that I
Speaker 4: would learn doing this job as super interesting to me.
Speaker 1: Hey, go ahead and tell me your story about I
Speaker 1: told these guys, you know, we weren't going to talk
Speaker 1: about we weren't going to give away the give away,
Speaker 1: the punchline to all of this stuff. But tell me
Speaker 1: about this Russian jacket. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So me and Cody were down at Mazie Landing, which
Speaker 4: is a river access down there by Prior and we
Speaker 4: were watching paddlefishmen. It was paddlefish time and we had
Speaker 4: a guy come up on a boat and he had
Speaker 4: a It was a small violation. It wasn't what we
Speaker 4: were really after. It was something that we could give
Speaker 4: a verbal warning for and going down the road, and
Speaker 4: so we did. He was very very nice. We were
Speaker 4: nice to him. Interaction was done and we had left. Well,
Speaker 4: we were we were sitting over waiting on some other
Speaker 4: guys to come through, and he approached our vehicle and
Speaker 4: we stopped and talked to him. You know, hey, man,
Speaker 4: what's up? And he said, Man, I just want to
Speaker 4: tell you, like how thankful I am how you guys
Speaker 4: treated me. I said, well, you know, no, no big deal.
Speaker 4: You know, that's how we do it. And he said, no,
Speaker 4: you don't understand where I come from. They would have
Speaker 4: cut my hands off for a violation of the law. Like, well,
Speaker 4: we don't do that here in Oklahoma anymore.
Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah, we wait until the second violator.
Speaker 3: We recently stopped.
Speaker 4: So, but he said, no, I want to I want
Speaker 4: to give you this. And it was a Russia jacket.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's interesting. And what was this jacket?
Speaker 9: He was a coach for one of their national teams.
Speaker 1: Wow, So this was really meaningful to him.
Speaker 9: It was super cool.
Speaker 4: Cody's still mad at me about it because it was
Speaker 4: down in his county.
Speaker 1: Cody wanted it.
Speaker 8: I don't know why he picked him.
Speaker 1: You're not good in that jacket. Yeah, that's my size
Speaker 1: and everything.
Speaker 9: Yeah, it didn't even fit me. But it's great.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Austin has a knack for that. So our patch
Speaker 3: changed in four or five years ago from the one
Speaker 3: that that you have there. And and so there's this
Speaker 3: old game warden patch that's it's triangle shaped and it
Speaker 3: says ranger and I mean they're like hen's teeth. No
Speaker 3: one can get them. There's just a few. There's like
Speaker 3: one on the wall at headquarters and we've all seen
Speaker 3: them and just you know, always wanted one. He's setting
Speaker 3: at a restaurant and an old man walks in and
Speaker 3: Vanita che restaurant, a Chinese restaurant, and said, hey, an
Speaker 3: old game warden lived at my house and h left
Speaker 3: a bunch of you know, stuff up in the attic.
Speaker 3: He said, I was wondering if you want it. Austin's like,
Speaker 3: heck yeah. So he brings him an ike jacket, which
Speaker 3: is like our formal jacket. And Austin brings it to
Speaker 3: a to a district meeting, and it had had all
Speaker 3: kinds of old like policy manuals and all kinds of
Speaker 3: neat stuff in it. But we're looking at it. I
Speaker 3: stick my hand in the inside coat pocket and I
Speaker 3: feel something in it. I can tell it's a patch.
Speaker 3: And I pulled it out and it's a stack of
Speaker 3: those patches, Like how many were they're five?
Speaker 9: Four or five?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so very few people have that patch. Before I
Speaker 3: showed it to him. Before I showed him, I said,
Speaker 3: I get one. He goes, what's in there? I said,
Speaker 3: I get one.
Speaker 6: It's like he was kind of like where he's at
Speaker 6: right now. We were guarding the door. He wasn't gonna
Speaker 6: get out give it at least US three.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's what's evaluation times coming up.
Speaker 1: Oh that's cool, that's cool. So what are today's most
Speaker 1: common paddlefish violations? Because it's becoming more and more popular more,
Speaker 1: am I right? Or maybe not more and more. It's well,
Speaker 1: y'all tell me. Maybe I think it's stayed about the
Speaker 1: same for me. I'm starting to see a little uptick
Speaker 1: the last couple of years than what it has been
Speaker 1: My first year's up in District one.
Speaker 9: It was busy.
Speaker 4: We had a lot of paddlefish stuff going on, and
Speaker 4: it kind of slowly trickled down.
Speaker 1: Right now, I'm talking about just like general participation and snagging.
Speaker 1: Is that what you're talking about. Yeah, that's not necessarily
Speaker 1: illegal activity.
Speaker 4: And it was kind of tough because we had several
Speaker 4: years there where we had what one hundred and thousand
Speaker 4: year floods. Yeah, and that made access to paddlefish extremely tough.
Speaker 8: We need water for paddlefish, but not that much.
Speaker 6: When it floods out the parking lot, they can't even
Speaker 6: get there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So that it kind of trickled down. Some of
Speaker 4: the most common violations we see is probably not tagging
Speaker 4: the fish after they catch it, not checking it in.
Speaker 4: So paddlefish in the state of Oklahoma, once you harvest one,
Speaker 4: you've got to check it in like you would a deer,
Speaker 4: turkey or berry anything like that. Yeah, and that's a
Speaker 4: common violation that we see. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's probably
Speaker 4: the most Yeah.
Speaker 1: Just not checking it. I mean, is it people that
Speaker 1: just don't know, or is it people just being lazy
Speaker 1: or just probably both?
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, probably So in the sport fishing realm,
Speaker 5: it's really one of the funnest things you can do
Speaker 5: in Oklahoma, you know, is to is to go paddle fishing.
Speaker 5: And like Cody said, you know, the water's got to
Speaker 5: be right, all the everything, all the moon has to
Speaker 5: align just right for it to be good. But when
Speaker 5: it's good, it's great. And like there's certain areas like
Speaker 5: up around the city of Miami, which happens to be
Speaker 5: the paddlefish capital of the world Oklahoma. They got a
Speaker 5: big banner there when you pull it in the town.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, it's it's a big deal. There's a city
Speaker 5: park there and for years, traditionally, for years, i mean
Speaker 5: we're talking twenty five thirty years, that was the place
Speaker 5: to catch a paddlefish. And when when the flow is right,
Speaker 5: that's where they're lined up shoulder to shoulder, you know,
Speaker 5: just going out as far as the snap.
Speaker 6: The only place that I know of that has city
Speaker 6: ordinances based on paddlefish and it's what is it. If
Speaker 6: they're younger than twelve years old, they have to wear
Speaker 6: a helmet and a life jacket. So if somebody backlashes
Speaker 6: on one side of the river, a kid doesn't get
Speaker 6: knocked out on the other side with the four ounce
Speaker 6: away you know, yeah it's.
Speaker 2: From the east coast and put him out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, his dad's encouraging.
Speaker 1: It's hard for me to imagine what it would look
Speaker 1: like underwater if there's that many fish. I mean you
Speaker 1: because it's like if you can line up I don't know,
Speaker 1: fifty people, thirty people along a shore and they're just
Speaker 1: just yep, yeah, I mean it's a lot of fish.
Speaker 3: So another aspect of this not to get off course,
Speaker 3: but is uh that's becoming super popular. Is life scoping
Speaker 3: for them? Yes, they'll chase one fish, you know, and
Speaker 3: you know, you can tell a big if it's a
Speaker 3: big south and they'll they'll they'll go after.
Speaker 1: They call them souths.
Speaker 2: Yeah, really, what's a male called a male, a male,
Speaker 2: here's your son.
Speaker 3: Into my life.
Speaker 1: How do you how do you feel about live scoping.
Speaker 3: So on on a on a on a on a
Speaker 3: standpoint of most fishing, I don't. I mean, obviously, it's
Speaker 3: it has changed the game. On a personal level. I
Speaker 3: don't have any issues with I think it's I have one.
Speaker 3: I'll be honest with you. But for paddlefish, watching them,
Speaker 3: for paddlefish, you it's it's like, it's unbelievable. These guys
Speaker 3: will go changes the game, changes the game because like
Speaker 3: in the winter time, when they disperse and there's there's
Speaker 3: just one here and one there, you know, they'll come
Speaker 3: up into different areas and we're not chasing them on
Speaker 3: you know, we're out in the lake and they I've
Speaker 3: done it. You can go out, you can get on
Speaker 3: one fish and and the only thing that you and
Speaker 3: you can watch that weight. You can watch it drop
Speaker 3: down when it gets to the to the depth of
Speaker 3: fishes that you're stopping, you're reeling in maintaining that that depth.
Speaker 3: And then all you're having to worry about is if
Speaker 3: you're left or right, and if you got a guy
Speaker 3: good enough guy that most of them are not using
Speaker 3: them on the troller motor because they're wanting to make
Speaker 3: little tiny changes and see if okay, yeah we lost
Speaker 3: the lost the weight and and if you know, and
Speaker 3: they can tell okay, pull right, pull right, and it's
Speaker 3: it's like taking him.
Speaker 5: That's why you're seeing so many world records walking is
Speaker 5: because they're targeting those big fish in the lakes.
Speaker 6: Well, we had one guy caught three world records and
Speaker 6: like all those.
Speaker 5: Those fish that you mean, yeah, yeah, those guys in Keystone. Yeah,
Speaker 5: but you know, those those guys broke records. You know,
Speaker 5: it was almost like every month they were breaking the record.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: Our friends up in Missouri where we turkey hunt, they
Speaker 2: do this snagging Jason Martin's and yeah, well we were
Speaker 2: going to go with them.
Speaker 1: Yeah that one day. Yeah, yeah, man. You know it's
Speaker 1: we had a big discussion, uh several weeks ago on
Speaker 1: on the Meteor podcast about live scoping, and it's it
Speaker 1: feels to me like an argument when when it comes
Speaker 1: to technology and increasing the catch, increasing the ability to
Speaker 1: harvest an animal, catch a fish, you kind of start
Speaker 1: chasing your tail when you talk about the ethics of it,
Speaker 1: because where do you stop. I mean, because you can
Speaker 1: talk about I mean just technology. Any level of technology
Speaker 1: increases increases your ability to take wildlife. And so it's
Speaker 1: like where does that line stop? Because you know today
Speaker 1: it's live scopes. Well what if what if we said
Speaker 1: you couldn't use a pickup truck to hunt or fish
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 3: Foot?
Speaker 1: Like that that's ethical is that you leave from your
Speaker 1: house on foot. I actually heard a guy make that
Speaker 1: argument one time, and I was like, that's a pretty
Speaker 1: good argument. I mean, you know, you know, basically he
Speaker 1: was proving a point that like where where is?
Speaker 8: And then you know you're.
Speaker 3: Really hunting with the aid of a motor vehicle every time,
Speaker 3: not by law, but you are using it to ax.
Speaker 1: I had a guy, a good friend of mine, t L.
Speaker 1: Jones and East Tennessee. He's a big bear houndsman. They
Speaker 1: used hounds to hunt bears in East Tennessee and he
Speaker 1: he he and I talk a lot about ethics of
Speaker 1: bear hunting with hounds and all this stuff, and he's
Speaker 1: like Clay, he said, well, he would say it way
Speaker 1: better than me. But basically he's like a guy tells
Speaker 1: me that I can't go out of my house and
Speaker 1: and that I'm lazy for raising bear hounds three and
Speaker 1: sixty five days a year. My family for the last
Speaker 1: three generations has done this. We dedicate our lives to it.
Speaker 1: And then he jumps in a pickup truck and drives
Speaker 1: two thousand miles to go elk hunting, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And he's like, and you're telling me that I'm using
Speaker 1: using some artificial means.
Speaker 2: To anything above him and something up and choking it
Speaker 2: to death with your bare hands is exactly is using technology.
Speaker 1: But live scope of paddlefish. That's pretty close to the line.
Speaker 3: Even on crappie. You know. We we've got probably everybody
Speaker 3: in this room would argue that our best guide on
Speaker 3: Grand Lake, and he's he's unbelievable. And he will tell
Speaker 3: you that if I could take twenty guys and could
Speaker 3: show him to God to life scope as good as
Speaker 3: I can, we could catch every big crappy on this leak,
Speaker 3: every single one of them. But the problem is he doesn't,
Speaker 3: and most guys don't. You know, most probably are idiots
Speaker 3: like me and just have it and kind of know
Speaker 3: how to use it, kind of don't and go once
Speaker 3: in a while. But it's definitely changed the game. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't think we've seen whether and on paddlefish. I
Speaker 3: think it's it's a different level. It may be something
Speaker 3: we have to look at as as really. I mean
Speaker 3: I just on on a personal level, I just not immediately,
Speaker 3: but it's not been talked about, but it's it is
Speaker 3: definitely on a different level of of the technic of
Speaker 3: using that technology.
Speaker 1: And what about them harvest and being able to target
Speaker 1: these big ones. Is that is that good or bad?
Speaker 1: Because a lot of times in like big game management,
Speaker 1: like if you're able if you take out these older
Speaker 1: age males, you know, that's a that's an animal that
Speaker 1: can be taken out without hurting the rest of this system.
Speaker 6: I don't know with with a so paddlefish or broadcast spawners, Right,
Speaker 6: we're gonna have the female come lay her eggs and
Speaker 6: we call.
Speaker 8: Souths.
Speaker 1: It's the bores that make a little little baby spoon bills.
Speaker 6: But then you have you know, twenty males come bye
Speaker 6: and and broadcast over the top of them. If you're
Speaker 6: doing away with that female because they're obviously bigger, there's
Speaker 6: no doubt when you look at a south, Yeah, there
Speaker 6: no doubt.
Speaker 1: There's no way to differentiate on a live Scantwin.
Speaker 6: And the guy that he's talking about, he can tell
Speaker 6: you that even in the depth of the winter, the
Speaker 6: coldest of the winter, you can go in some of
Speaker 6: these deeper holes on the upper ending Grand Lake and uh,
Speaker 6: you can see the female. She's you know, twice as
Speaker 6: big as the males that are all surrounding her. They're
Speaker 6: waiting on her to go up up river and they're going.
Speaker 8: To target that bigger fish.
Speaker 6: Obviously, that's what everybody wants, a big fish, big buck,
Speaker 6: big big bear or whatever.
Speaker 8: I don't know.
Speaker 5: Where we go, we are seeing some of those being caught, captured, pictures, taken,
Speaker 5: and released.
Speaker 1: So there catching the release culture at all.
Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Is most of the snagging are the fish able to
Speaker 1: be released?
Speaker 8: They said.
Speaker 6: So they did a study in Oklahoma back a decade
Speaker 6: ago where they I think they caught like thirty fish,
Speaker 6: put tags in them, snagged them, recorded the time that
Speaker 6: they had took them to get them in and the
Speaker 6: stress level and the temperature and all that stuff. I
Speaker 6: think they caught thirty and then they went back like
Speaker 6: a month later to see how many of those made it.
Speaker 6: And I think, now, don't quote me on this, I
Speaker 6: think twenty nine of those had made it a month later.
Speaker 1: So pretty high percent.
Speaker 2: Never thought that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well the way they the way they described
Speaker 1: like the leathery skin and cartilaginous, it feels like they're
Speaker 1: pretty durable.
Speaker 5: Yeah, have you ever?
Speaker 8: Never have?
Speaker 2: Really, I never.
Speaker 5: Can fix.
Speaker 1: That's where I was about to go.
Speaker 8: You cut me off.
Speaker 1: No, I would, for real, I would. I would love
Speaker 1: to go at some point.
Speaker 6: And that that that catch and release culture back whenever
Speaker 6: you were working, you caught your first three, And they
Speaker 6: did that to keep people from targeting the females, right,
Speaker 6: because you will have to wait through a bunch of
Speaker 6: males to get a female. You had to catch the
Speaker 6: keep the first three, and a bunch of those guys
Speaker 6: didn't want to keep them. They just wanted to go
Speaker 6: and catch them. And I wasn't around them. But they
Speaker 6: say that those guys would drive a mile down the
Speaker 6: road and dump all the fish in the bar ditch
Speaker 6: because they had to keep them.
Speaker 8: They couldn't throw them back.
Speaker 6: So they changed that where catch and release and barbloss
Speaker 6: hooks so that you're not tearing them up as bad
Speaker 6: to get barbleous. Yea, And that way guys weren't gonna
Speaker 6: dump them down the road in a mile. They could
Speaker 6: at least throw them back in the river and they
Speaker 6: had a chance of making it so brand.
Speaker 1: Have you ever caught a paddle fish?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: If you soald some eggs across state lines too, Yeah, no, had.
Speaker 5: We've been in there.
Speaker 3: What did you think of the dining experience? I didn't
Speaker 3: like it.
Speaker 1: It's you very chewy Yoh you ate a paddlefish? Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is only after you took that.
Speaker 2: No. This, I was actually in college Goods and I
Speaker 2: run the radio on the weekends at the police department.
Speaker 2: Warned at the dispatcher and we had a trustee there
Speaker 2: who was his parents. They come from a family commercial
Speaker 2: fisherman and every Sunday they come over and have a
Speaker 2: visitation where they bring fish. And I was working on
Speaker 2: Sunday and we ate. We had a fish fry to
Speaker 2: jail every every Sunday. And while this fellow was in jail,
Speaker 2: and they brought over some Oh.
Speaker 1: This guy's in jail. He was family.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they'd have visitation on Sunday. But they want
Speaker 2: ask me one day because I was running the show man.
Speaker 2: I'm nineteen years old, I'm the boss, Like, can we
Speaker 2: fry fish out here in the parking lot. I said,
Speaker 2: you know what you show can if you got enough
Speaker 2: for me.
Speaker 5: Isn't it?
Speaker 2: So they bring it, they bring it over them. They
Speaker 2: fry fish, and they brought some, brought some of that
Speaker 2: over there. I didn't like it. And it was just
Speaker 2: fried up, just like you fry catfish. It was just
Speaker 2: a real rubbery. It's chewy.
Speaker 1: That have you all had it?
Speaker 8: When it's pretty, when it's.
Speaker 5: Edible, you know, you can slice it up and fry it,
Speaker 5: just like catfish and everything like that. It's not bad,
Speaker 5: hot out of the grease. You do not want to
Speaker 5: eat it the next day, that's it for sure.
Speaker 3: Super good.
Speaker 1: What fish do you want to eat the next day?
Speaker 5: Well, you know, I'm eaten crappy the next day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess it's all right.
Speaker 5: It's good, it's all right.
Speaker 6: But they're like a swordfish, is what I've had. I've
Speaker 6: only had swordfish one time. But you can cut them
Speaker 6: up and eat them like a steak. They're not flaky
Speaker 6: like a crappie or something like that. And a lot
Speaker 6: of guys will smoke them or cook them like a steak.
Speaker 2: You get it lit.
Speaker 5: Once you get the skin off of them. You can.
Speaker 5: You can, actually, they're really easy to skin. And then
Speaker 5: you've got this big chunk of fish in the middle,
Speaker 5: you know the car legends. There's no bones and you
Speaker 5: can just slice it like steaks. And I've seen guys
Speaker 5: smoke that used it on smoker and stuff like that,
Speaker 5: and they say it's yeah, and they say it's pretty big,
Speaker 5: that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: That was pretty cool pulling that. Pulling that, Yeah, it
Speaker 2: made a ring around the tail. They had his head
Speaker 2: cut off and a ring around the tail, and they
Speaker 2: twisted that tail and right out. Yeah, it's pretty cool.
Speaker 5: You might have a four foot fish, but that thing
Speaker 5: might be eight foot long when you pull it out.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Wow, stretches out.
Speaker 1: Interesting. Well, guys, thank you so much for coming. Really
Speaker 1: appreciate it. Austin, thanks for tapping me into this story
Speaker 1: with all these with with all the connections and pleasure
Speaker 1: to have you guys. Thank you for thanks for what
Speaker 1: you're doing. Thank you for your service to our wildlife
Speaker 1: resources and the people of Oklahoma. Misty, do you have
Speaker 1: anything you'd like to say?
Speaker 2: Nothing.
Speaker 5: He's giving her a chance to talk.
Speaker 8: Like you said, he didn't let her talk around.
Speaker 2: He's the end of the show. Oh got it, he's
Speaker 2: got he's got to live here once.
Speaker 5: He's got to make amends.
Speaker 7: Now thinks I'm being forced to speak. Oh thanks for
Speaker 7: coming out to the to the house. It's good to
Speaker 7: see y all. Good to Thanks for sharing the story.
Speaker 7: It was a good one.
Speaker 5: We appreciate the hospitality. We appreciate what you guys do
Speaker 5: for the outdoors. You do you shine a light on
Speaker 5: the country way life and uh we appreciate that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, stick around next week for uh bump bum Operation
Speaker 1: Russian Snag. Thank you guys, Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 5: Let you click