Speaker 1: Welcome to More Outdoors on News Talk five sixty KLVI.
Speaker 1: This is Chester Moore. Poaching has always been something that
Speaker 1: I have wanted to raise awareness to because poaching is
Speaker 1: the antithesis of legal hunting. It is killing animals without
Speaker 1: regard for science, for management, for population levels. And over
Speaker 1: the last few years, I have been on an ongoing
Speaker 1: quest to raise awareness and an investigation of what I
Speaker 1: call the teen poaching crisis. In the first half of
Speaker 1: the show, we're going to talk about that crisis. In
Speaker 1: the second half, we're going to have an interview with
Speaker 1: a game warden that will blow your mind about a
Speaker 1: poaching ring that was just busted. Dolphins are one of
Speaker 1: America's most beloved animals, from flipper thrilling families on television
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties to modern day dolphin encounters the aquariums
Speaker 1: and resorts. The love affair families have with dolphins is
Speaker 1: a strong one. So when game wardens in Orange County,
Speaker 1: Texas have found a dead dolphin impaled by a fishing arrow,
Speaker 1: it sent shockwaves across national media outlets. This happened in
Speaker 1: my hometown, so a couple of days after the incident,
Speaker 1: I spoke with the local game board. He revealed the
Speaker 1: type of fishing broadhead used in the incident was only
Speaker 1: sold at one location in the region, a popular archery shop.
Speaker 1: He said, quote that has really narrowed down our search.
Speaker 1: We'll find out who did this, he said. What official
Speaker 1: did not expect was that the perpetrators were two teenage
Speaker 1: brothers who, while both fishing, came across a young dolphin
Speaker 1: that had wandered into fresh water. So, instead of enjoying
Speaker 1: seeing the beautiful protected marine mammal and reporting it was
Speaker 1: in an unusual area, they killed it. This happened only
Speaker 1: a few miles from my home in twenty fifteen and
Speaker 1: opened my eyes to a problem few in our industry
Speaker 1: have discussed. In my opinion, America has a tar keeen
Speaker 1: poaching crisis that needs to be addressed in a major way,
Speaker 1: and it's very, very dark. Less than a year later,
Speaker 1: a team from Jefferson County, just one county over, was
Speaker 1: charged for killing two whooping cranes. A judge ordered the
Speaker 1: nineteen year old to pay twenty six thousand in restitution,
Speaker 1: barred him from owning or possession of firearms or ammunition,
Speaker 1: and prohibited him from hunting or fishing in the United States.
Speaker 1: He was also sentenced to two hundred hours of community service.
Speaker 1: Shortly after this made headlines, I asked a Galveston County
Speaker 1: game warden if she had noticed any trends in game
Speaker 1: and fish violations among teenagers. The answer blew me away quote, Yes,
Speaker 1: they need to stop killing our eagles. Take for example,
Speaker 1: a seventeen year old Harris County, Texas boy who was
Speaker 1: charging connection with the shooting of a bald eagle near
Speaker 1: White Oak. By you, it was one of a pair
Speaker 1: that actively nested in the area for several years. A
Speaker 1: bald eagle the symbol of the United States of America. Yes,
Speaker 1: a bald eagle. The most heinous instance of eagle poaching
Speaker 1: came from the Pacific Northwest Washington, Fish and Wildlife police
Speaker 1: said a Sheriff's department officer found evidence of teens purposely
Speaker 1: hunting for and poaching eagles. This is a quote from
Speaker 1: an official press release. Officer Bolton and the deputy searched
Speaker 1: the area for downed wildlife and soon discovered a relatively
Speaker 1: fresh dough deer on the hillside near where the suspects
Speaker 1: had parked four older deer carcasses In various stages of
Speaker 1: decomposition were found in the same location. The officers learned
Speaker 1: that one of the young men shot the dough the
Speaker 1: night before by using a high powered spotlight. The animal
Speaker 1: was then near the other carcasses in an effort to
Speaker 1: bait in and shoot eagles. That's not an incident of
Speaker 1: an impulsive act of game law violations. That's a calculated
Speaker 1: effort that involves multiple poaching incidents to purposely kill eagles,
Speaker 1: most likely for the black market trade and their claws
Speaker 1: and feathers. Over the last eight years now, multiple other
Speaker 1: incidents involving teens killing eagles have occurred across the country.
Speaker 1: But it's not just eagles and dolphins. An eighteen year
Speaker 1: old and a twenty three year old we're charged with capturing, harassing,
Speaker 1: and harming three endangered key deer, the smallest subspecies of whitetail,
Speaker 1: which is also a federally endangered species. According to a
Speaker 1: report at Local ten dot com, the eighteen year old
Speaker 1: said he lured three of them with food, restrained them,
Speaker 1: and put them in the car in a plan to
Speaker 1: take pictures with them. All three deer had to be
Speaker 1: euthanized due to broken legs, An article at go hunt
Speaker 1: dot com details two high school age males are guilty
Speaker 1: of poaching ten mule deer in Macombe County, Montana.
Speaker 2: Quote.
Speaker 1: According to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, the deer were
Speaker 1: killed with a shotgun using loads typically used for pheasants.
Speaker 1: All of the deer were discovered on a two mile
Speaker 1: stretch near Road five twenty eight in northern Macombe County.
Speaker 1: Not to be outdone, four Pennsylvania teenagers went on a
Speaker 1: white tail poaching spree that one wildlife official called, quote
Speaker 1: one of the most disturbing incidents he's ever seen. Two
Speaker 1: seventeen year olds and one boy age sixteen killed at
Speaker 1: least thirty deer by spotlighting with the headlamp or their
Speaker 1: car lights, exiting the vehicle in the deer rich area,
Speaker 1: and opening fire. Officials said they probably wounded many more
Speaker 1: than could be accounted for. Quote. It was almost like
Speaker 1: a video game for them. They did it because they
Speaker 1: were bored, said Clinton Deneker, a wildlife conservation officer with
Speaker 1: the Pennsylvania Game Commission, and a press release issued after
Speaker 1: the Grizzly incident, there is no telling how many deer
Speaker 1: were killed or wounded, he said, adding that he can
Speaker 1: account for at least thirty. A twenty twenty incident in
Speaker 1: Wisconsin involved multiple teens over the course of a month,
Speaker 1: killing forty white tails and one horse, all of them
Speaker 1: were left to rot, and there were numerous other incidents
Speaker 1: involving dozens of deer and other game killed in similar
Speaker 1: sprees by teens all around the nation. This is not
Speaker 1: an indictment of teens. It's not one of those diatribes
Speaker 1: we often hear in our culture, like the kids these
Speaker 1: days are rotten. I dedicate much of my life working
Speaker 1: with teens. I believe in them and think there are
Speaker 1: things about the current crop up teams that shows incredible
Speaker 1: promise for our future. But this team poaching thing has
Speaker 1: to be addressed, and it has to start with an admission. Most,
Speaker 1: if not all, of these teens came from hunting families.
Speaker 1: While we as hunters rightfully to note that poaching and
Speaker 1: hunting are actually radically different practices, these kids are familiar
Speaker 1: with game firearms, and in several instances we're engaged in
Speaker 1: legal hunting activities when an opportunity to poach came along.
Speaker 1: That means somewhere down the line, we have to for
Speaker 1: those of us in the hunting community talk about this
Speaker 1: issue and find ways to engage it. But we need
Speaker 1: to ask some questions first. How much does parental influence
Speaker 1: play into this? There is no question some of these
Speaker 1: cases involve a long line of game law violations generationally.
Speaker 1: Twenty nineteen case from Alaska as a prime example, as
Speaker 1: a father and his seventeen year old son killed a
Speaker 1: mother bear and her two babies and a den. What
Speaker 1: they didn't realize was the bear had a GPS collar
Speaker 1: on it and a camera to monitor their hibernation habits,
Speaker 1: so they got busted in short order. A father who
Speaker 1: raised his son or daughter to go to the level
Speaker 1: of killing baby bears in a den shows authority figures
Speaker 1: can play a large role influencing teen poaching, but it's
Speaker 1: not the entire answer. Social media notoriety in our culture,
Speaker 1: some of the most famous people are now famous for
Speaker 1: only doing something famous or controversial. They haven't actually accomplished anything,
Speaker 1: but those who are broken laws or done immoral things
Speaker 1: and publicize them on social media are famous. Is there
Speaker 1: a link between social media celebrity in teen poaching? A
Speaker 1: twenty twenty Texas case was solved because as a team
Speaker 1: that poached to deer that was well known living in
Speaker 1: a neighborhood bragged about it on Facebook. Officials believe the
Speaker 1: aforementioned Pennsylvania teen deer massacre was being communicated behind the
Speaker 1: scenes through Snapchat. Something else to look at is the
Speaker 1: power of suggestion. Social media and traditional outdoors media outlets
Speaker 1: have unfortunately been a place for dark sentiment regarding wildlife.
Speaker 1: While we can agree that much of the quote green
Speaker 1: movement has little to do with actually protecting the environment,
Speaker 1: some of the rhetoric rallying against it is quite dark
Speaker 1: and is hauntingly similar to things we're seeing play out
Speaker 1: in some of these team cases. A few years back,
Speaker 1: I encountered several people who use social media and at
Speaker 1: least one outdoors radio program to suggest shooting dolphins as
Speaker 1: a cure for ailing flounder populations. And when we come back,
Speaker 1: we'll talk more about this special investigation of poach. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to More Outdoors on News Talk five sixty KLVII.
Speaker 1: This is Chester Moore talking about an ugly issue in
Speaker 1: the outdoors, poaching, and we've been talking about what I
Speaker 1: call the teen poaching crisis, a phenomenon that I literally
Speaker 1: am the only one that is addressed. I mean, we've
Speaker 1: had stories about it here there in terms of isolated events,
Speaker 1: but I'm linking these things together. And if you have
Speaker 1: any feedback on what I'm calling the teen poaching crisis,
Speaker 1: please message me at chesteratchestermore dot com. I would love
Speaker 1: to hear from you. This was a quote from an
Speaker 1: email I got when I responded to this on my
Speaker 1: social media quote. They are always out there in the
Speaker 1: past is flipping those flounders out of the water and
Speaker 1: eating them, So we should start killing some of the dolphins.
Speaker 1: End quote. Interestingly, this radio program that said this broadcasted
Speaker 1: in the area where the teens shot the dolphin. This idea,
Speaker 1: by the way, gained a large enough following that I
Speaker 1: received multiple emails and social media messages about it. I
Speaker 1: don't know how many times I've heard things like while
Speaker 1: meat tastes like bald eagle or spotted owl. Those comments
Speaker 1: aren't funny and could be damaging to the cause of
Speaker 1: hunting uttered in front of a non hunter, but could
Speaker 1: they also influence teams who want to impress adults. It's
Speaker 1: something to ponder. Games are also something that needs looked at.
Speaker 1: A few years ago, I received a hunting video game
Speaker 1: to review in the mail. I'm not a gamer, and
Speaker 1: since it was unsolicited, I did not review it. But
Speaker 1: when I came across this team Poaching crisis, I studied
Speaker 1: the game. The game had multiple opportunities to kill non
Speaker 1: game and even endangered animals. Some hunting games are very ethical,
Speaker 1: with bag limits, seasons, and other aspects of how true
Speaker 1: hunters conduct themselves. I would even say most hunting games
Speaker 1: I have seen are not set up in a way
Speaker 1: that are negative toward animals. But there's another side to it.
Speaker 1: There are some games based on survival that have nothing
Speaker 1: to do with hunting and killing animals as part of it.
Speaker 1: This includes non game protected and endangered animals, And it
Speaker 1: makes me circle back to the quote from the warden
Speaker 1: in the charge of the Pennsylvania case quote it was
Speaker 1: almost like a video game for them. They did it
Speaker 1: because they were bored end quote. Looking into the content
Speaker 1: of first person shooter games is certainly something we should
Speaker 1: do as families, and maybe for those of us who
Speaker 1: work in the hunting industry start looking more seriously at it.
Speaker 1: There is obviously a gap somewhere in wildlife education and
Speaker 1: awareness of the penalties for these kinds of atrocities. Teens
Speaker 1: have had their lives uprooted by the consequences of these
Speaker 1: senseless actions. The great news is there are more teens
Speaker 1: engaged in conservation than there are poaching, and it's time
Speaker 1: we highlight them even more in media outlets like this one.
Speaker 1: The Houston Safari Club Foundation education work with Houston and
Speaker 1: area school districts is a shining example. Teens get to
Speaker 1: see conservation centric hunting information and are inspired to give
Speaker 1: back to our natural resources. Programs like Texas Brigades often
Speaker 1: do a great job of instilling a conservation ethic. I
Speaker 1: have personally been inspired to see how mentoring can help
Speaker 1: teens through our Higher Calling Wildlife expeditions and mentoring program,
Speaker 1: and one particular occurrence touches directly on this issue. I
Speaker 1: took fourteen year old Nathan Childis on a quote green
Speaker 1: hunt for Nubian ibex at a friend's ranch. Instead of
Speaker 1: a standard rifle, he had a dart gun and the
Speaker 1: mission was to dart the massive ibex billy that had
Speaker 1: jump the fence and gotten into another pasture. After a
Speaker 1: long afternoon of hunting, Nathan made a perfect shot. He
Speaker 1: got to inoculate the Ibex against Disease post with some
Speaker 1: cold photos with it, and helped move it to another pasture.
Speaker 1: As the sun set on the Texas Hill Country that evening,
Speaker 1: Nathan said something profound quote, when people teach you the
Speaker 1: right way to hunt and you get to do things
Speaker 1: like this, you want to do the right thing to
Speaker 1: honor that. I will never poach animals because I respect
Speaker 1: them too much and want to make sure kids ten
Speaker 1: years from now can have opportunities like I just had
Speaker 1: end quote. We can have more testimonies like this, like
Speaker 1: Nathan's testimony if we invest more time and effort not
Speaker 1: only into youth education but mentorship. But we also have
Speaker 1: to dig into what is happening with teens in this
Speaker 1: poaching crisis raging across America. Something is influencing teens and
Speaker 1: not only damage wildlife populations and tarn us to reputation
Speaker 1: of legal hunters, but it also damages their lives. As
Speaker 1: an industry that I'm part of, we must confront it
Speaker 1: is for the sake of the future of wildlife in
Speaker 1: our youth. And there's a lot more to poaching, of course,
Speaker 1: in this team poaching crisis, and I recently had the
Speaker 1: opportunity to interview a game warden from New York on
Speaker 1: one of the most shocking poaching incidents I've ever heard.
Speaker 1: I recently came across a shocking poaching situation that law
Speaker 1: enforcement officials made a case on in New York and
Speaker 1: it is absolutely incredible and not in a good way.
Speaker 1: The good part of it is the great work of
Speaker 1: the law enforcement officials of the New York Department of
Speaker 1: Environmental Conservation and joining us on the program, I have
Speaker 1: Captain Joshua Verhague and we're going to talk about this
Speaker 1: shocking case. How did wildlife officials first become aware of
Speaker 1: this scheme of what was going on?
Speaker 2: So in the area, we have a couple of wildlife
Speaker 2: photographers that were recording through their lenses deer in the area.
Speaker 2: And in this part of New York State, the area
Speaker 2: is closed completely for safety reasons to hunting. And with that,
Speaker 2: as majority of your listeners probably know, if there's no hunting,
Speaker 2: deer have the opportunity to grow big and abundant. So
Speaker 2: even though it is in a suburban setting, there's still
Speaker 2: enough small patches of woods that the deer have the
Speaker 2: opportunity to reach some max potentials. So through that these
Speaker 2: photographers were noticing some other people come into the area
Speaker 2: as well as as time has progressed and more and
Speaker 2: more with shed hunting and people become aware of shed
Speaker 2: hunting online social media groups, through the wildlife photographers and
Speaker 2: the shed hunting social media groups. Really we're putting it
Speaker 2: out there that hey, look what I found, Look what
Speaker 2: I'm seeing. And so between those two is the individual
Speaker 2: started noticing gut piles as well as an other suspicious
Speaker 2: activity and that was reported to us.
Speaker 1: All right, so there was you know, in the press
Speaker 1: release mentioned this this online part of this. So these
Speaker 1: people were kind of infiltrating online groups of photographers and
Speaker 1: maybe shed hunters to get intel.
Speaker 2: Basically, yeah, correct, specifically they were part of a shed
Speaker 2: hunting social media group. One of the individuals took it
Speaker 2: to the next step to really analyze the size of
Speaker 2: box by creating a fake wildlife photographer social media account
Speaker 2: to get into that group and really see what was
Speaker 2: out there. And so they commonsense was being done from
Speaker 2: a remote setting, and what more of a better avenue
Speaker 2: than wildlife photographers taking pictures of one hundred and sixty
Speaker 2: one hundred and eighty inch deer, and you could say
Speaker 2: at wherever they were looking at the size of these deer.
Speaker 2: It had been going on for a while. Unfortunately, with
Speaker 2: statute of limitations after the fact, we were limited on
Speaker 2: the enforcement. We did have other violations going beyond the statute,
Speaker 2: but that's just how the law works, and that's okay.
Speaker 2: We need to work within the confines of the law,
Speaker 2: and that's fine. So we had estimated that it was
Speaker 2: going on for about five years, going back to about
Speaker 2: twenty and eighteen twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: Now, was it only in this particular area, or did
Speaker 1: you get the idea that this might be going on
Speaker 1: in other areas as well?
Speaker 2: Other areas through evidence found under search warrants, through social
Speaker 2: media accounts, through cell phone accounts, and then physical search warrants,
Speaker 2: we found evidence in other parts of New York State,
Speaker 2: even as close to the confines of New York City. Yes,
Speaker 2: there's there in New York City, as well as other
Speaker 2: states along the Eastern Seaboard, and we did reach out
Speaker 2: to those states for the evidence that we observed. They
Speaker 2: did conduct and investigations but were unable to make a
Speaker 2: case off of those.
Speaker 1: So you have the individuals that were mentioned in the
Speaker 1: news release and the one that was posing as a
Speaker 1: female wildlife photographer. So is this something that looks like
Speaker 1: it had tentacles other places and maybe had been more elaborate.
Speaker 2: Yes, it was completely targeted.
Speaker 1: And we come back on More out there was we
Speaker 1: hear more about this incredible case, the great law enforcement
Speaker 1: work it took to solve it, and dig more into
Speaker 1: the poaching crime. This is across America. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: More Outdoors on News Talk five sixty klv I. This
Speaker 1: is Chester Moore talking about poaching tonight and if you
Speaker 1: have any feedback on this or you have any stories
Speaker 1: you would like to share, email me at Chester at
Speaker 1: Chestermore dot com, follow me at the Chestermore That is
Speaker 1: d Chester Moore, Instagram, Hire Calling dot net. My blog goes.
Speaker 1: Subscribe to that blog. A lot of exclusive stuff there
Speaker 1: and of course catch me here every Friday sixty seven
Speaker 1: pm Central Standard Time on news Talk five sixty klv
Speaker 1: I with More Outdoors. Back to our conversation with the
Speaker 1: game warden from New York.
Speaker 2: It was completely targeted chim. They knew the deer they
Speaker 2: wanted and the group. In my nineteen years, this was
Speaker 2: the most sophisticated sophisticated organization of poaching. You know, I
Speaker 2: have seen groups of friends, family members get together and hey,
Speaker 2: let's go jacket deer, and they were for a night
Speaker 2: are season. What's interesting about this case is the use
Speaker 2: of social media, which we have seen before, but how
Speaker 2: the use of the wildlife photographers and the shed hunting
Speaker 2: groups to specifically target bucks, to use their accounts as
Speaker 2: well as text messaging threads and specifically target a buck. Hey,
Speaker 2: this weekend, we're going to go shoot this and whatever
Speaker 2: the name of the deer was, this one hundred and
Speaker 2: sixty inch deer, this one hundred and eighty inch buck.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to settle for this one hundred and
Speaker 2: forty inch buck in the area. I want this one
Speaker 2: the most efficient organized I should say for targeting specific deer.
Speaker 2: It's not just hey, we're going to go put some
Speaker 2: meat in the freezer. This is we're going to go
Speaker 2: shoot this monster buck on this day because we know
Speaker 2: it's in this area, because of this wildlife photographer, because
Speaker 2: of this social media account puts it there two days ago,
Speaker 2: and so I know, even in the middle of the
Speaker 2: rot this deer is relatively close here. We're going to
Speaker 2: find it, We're going to shoot it.
Speaker 1: Wow. Was there any evidence they used like geo tags
Speaker 1: they could find in photos?
Speaker 2: No, we of course the technology allows different avenues to
Speaker 2: detect that. I don't recall any avenues where they were
Speaker 2: utilizing it. They through their shed hunting, which is the
Speaker 2: off season. Through their shed hunting opportunities in the area,
Speaker 2: they generally knew the patches of woods that these deer
Speaker 2: were in.
Speaker 1: M H.
Speaker 2: So uh unforeseen on this case with that technology use.
Speaker 1: Now, in terms of this social media aspect of this,
Speaker 1: was this mainly being done through like Facebook groups where
Speaker 1: their Snapchat involved because I've heard of a poaching case
Speaker 1: and I believe it was Ohio that had some Snapchat
Speaker 1: elements in it.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah, uh. Both were being used, the regular
Speaker 2: textmester s thread being used. And just to mention another
Speaker 2: part of the case which makes it interesting, this is
Speaker 2: plain day, plain middle of the day on a weekend,
Speaker 2: playing clothes, maybe a little bit of camel. But their
Speaker 2: approach was to pose as hikers, wildlife photographers, normal people
Speaker 2: just out enjoying a nice fall afternoon. They're not dressed
Speaker 2: in full camo hiding in the bush and trying to
Speaker 2: get away. With it middle of the day and again
Speaker 2: suburban setting, so using all avenues possible. We did see
Speaker 2: some potential for hiding smaller bows, compact bows.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: That was my next question about getting archery equipment in there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and that was something I've never seen before.
Speaker 2: As technology increases, you know, manufacturers are taking bows and
Speaker 2: hunting equipment to the next level because you know, certainly
Speaker 2: you want the most efficient, clean kill the animal. But
Speaker 2: with that also comes some other complications. They were able
Speaker 2: to fit a bow into a backpack and if you
Speaker 2: were looking at them, you would never think that that
Speaker 2: person had a bow in their backpack. They also, which
Speaker 2: I've never seen before, I had walking sticks, and they
Speaker 2: would hide the arrows within the walking sticks, again to
Speaker 2: give home that additional level of just being out there
Speaker 2: and enjoying it. So any individual and probably even law
Speaker 2: enforcement would not think that they were up to poaching activities.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't have the earmarks. And you know a
Speaker 1: lot of times you think of you know, some guy
Speaker 1: poaching area like that, coming out at night with the
Speaker 1: twenty two magnum or something and you know, with a
Speaker 1: little headlight, yeah or whatever. And that's kind of in
Speaker 1: East Texas here what happens most of the time, or
Speaker 1: but these guys obviously had, you know, a game plan.
Speaker 1: And I'm a bow hunter myself, and when I first
Speaker 1: heard archery equipment involved, I thought it might have been
Speaker 1: somebody's really tiny crossbows. But when I noticed it mentioned
Speaker 1: compact bows, I went and checked out an archery shop.
Speaker 1: At the smallest bows they had, I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: you could fit that in a backpack, you know. So
Speaker 1: that was an interesting aspect of this. Now in terms
Speaker 1: of the individuals and maybe some of the other things
Speaker 1: you looked at, did you get any sense that this
Speaker 1: might have been part of the reason they did it,
Speaker 1: was the thrill of going in and doing this and
Speaker 1: particularly targeting certain bucks, or was there any kind of
Speaker 1: like we're going to sell the racks off of these
Speaker 1: or anything like that.
Speaker 2: Nothing revealed the seal of the reps during the physical
Speaker 2: search warrants of the subject's residents. This was not the
Speaker 2: first time they had shot a I wouldn't say world class,
Speaker 2: but a very nice, mature dear that majority of public
Speaker 2: would not see in their hunting lifetime.
Speaker 1: Huh.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of it was for self motivation,
Speaker 2: self gain, ego driven type things to say that we
Speaker 2: shot some big bucks. Nothing was shown for sale or
Speaker 2: purchase in the investigation, and we dug pretty deep.
Speaker 1: It's a very interesting case. And you mentioned you like
Speaker 1: getting search warrs and going in. There was a particular
Speaker 1: deer in the press release at our riad where it
Speaker 1: ran into someone's backyard.
Speaker 2: Again going back, yes and no. So being a suburban setting,
Speaker 2: the majority of the areas that they're hunting are surrounded
Speaker 2: by residential or apartment complex and so on. So the
Speaker 2: one individual was observed walking what would have been behind
Speaker 2: the one of the complainant's house in the backyard, but
Speaker 2: it was owned by another entity. The deer after it
Speaker 2: was shot, because we put the time piece together wobbling
Speaker 2: as the complainant had told us, in what was on
Speaker 2: the patch of woods, but not in physically owned by
Speaker 2: the complainant, but would be what you would consider like, hey,
Speaker 2: that's my backyard, Like what are you doing. Yes, the
Speaker 2: individual and the dying deer as it was mortally wounded
Speaker 2: and eventually deceased not too far from where the complainants
Speaker 2: sought it would have been in a person's backyard.
Speaker 1: It's a very interesting case and The reason I want
Speaker 1: to do this is just a sort of raise awareness
Speaker 1: to how far poachers will go and how maybe they
Speaker 1: can use modern technology to do things. And people who
Speaker 1: maybe you know have private herds of animals or property,
Speaker 1: or you know, have animals and urban settings suburban settings
Speaker 1: around their homes. So how did this make you look
Speaker 1: as a department more at the social media aspect of
Speaker 1: how people can you know, scout out poaching opportunities?
Speaker 2: Absolutely?
Speaker 3: Uh huh.
Speaker 2: This level of a fake out is certainly something that
Speaker 2: we need to and when I say we, it's not
Speaker 2: just New York State, but the natural resource law enforcement
Speaker 2: across the country and perhaps the world need to look
Speaker 2: at the organization level of it because it's there and
Speaker 2: it's present.
Speaker 1: What should the public in terms of posting photos of wildlife?
Speaker 1: Is there? Should we be concerned about, you know, giving
Speaker 1: two specific information of locations of wildlife and things like
Speaker 1: that to be photographed.
Speaker 2: That's a tough question, you know, if the public is
Speaker 2: out there taking photo listen, who doesn't love seeing If
Speaker 2: you love the others, you love seeing see in pictures,
Speaker 2: you love seeing different wildlife that are native to your state,
Speaker 2: or whatever the scenario be. What I think that would
Speaker 2: be the pitch to the public is the obscure scenarios
Speaker 2: that just doesn't make sense. You know, if you're common
Speaker 2: to this area and you're the wildlife photographer and you've
Speaker 2: never seen somebody hiking of this nature for you know,
Speaker 2: the last ten years you've been in there or whatever
Speaker 2: it is, see something, say something that you know Post
Speaker 2: nine to eleven is a common thing, even in the
Speaker 2: Wildlife tract. If it's uncommon, please call your local agency
Speaker 2: and specific to New York. You know, we get complaints
Speaker 2: all the time. We get hey, I saw this, and
Speaker 2: we love it. If it's at the local diner, coffee shop,
Speaker 2: gas station. Communication is the only way because you know,
Speaker 2: majority of your natural resource law enforcement, your game boarder
Speaker 2: is out there. Were green for a reason to hide,
Speaker 2: but believe it or not, where we are not out
Speaker 2: there twenty four to seven and we do need the
Speaker 2: public's help, and we appreciate it the public's help, and
Speaker 2: hopefully it's a give back to those people that are
Speaker 2: doing it the right way.
Speaker 1: When we come back on more outdoor, if we're gonna
Speaker 1: shift tears and go into a highly costive aspect of
Speaker 1: the great outdoors, welcome back to more outdoors. On Newstar
Speaker 1: five sixty klv I kind of went into the dark
Speaker 1: side with poaching tonight and raising awareness of that issue.
Speaker 1: We're gonna end with something fun talking to Captain Brian
Speaker 1: Brera about tarp and fishing on the Texas Coast. Fish,
Speaker 1: you know, our reds our specs, our flounder. You know,
Speaker 1: flounder will even go into the gulfer in the winter,
Speaker 1: but they're still holdover fish. Those are fish that are
Speaker 1: gonna be there three sixty five at some level in
Speaker 1: our base systems and around the jetties and things. But
Speaker 1: these tarp and mysterious. As a matter of fact, there's
Speaker 1: not even that much information about these populations in the
Speaker 1: part of the Gulf of Mexico and the Western Gulf
Speaker 1: we're in compared to other species. So let's just kind
Speaker 1: of dial it back a little bit and down in
Speaker 1: this southern the very southern tier of the Texas Coast.
Speaker 1: You mentioned that these fish will come in, So do
Speaker 1: you have any fish that are there year around about
Speaker 1: maybe juveniles and that kind.
Speaker 3: Of stuff, Yes, sir, Yes, the sister we've got a
Speaker 3: pretty good juvenile population population of tarpin sometimes my guys
Speaker 3: will come with a fly rod and catch and he
Speaker 3: thinks he's got a bait fish on it. It's a
Speaker 3: two pound tarpin and.
Speaker 1: Nothing wrong with that, man, I'm down with that.
Speaker 3: Well with that, they're awesome. They're still jumping around and
Speaker 3: out and around, you know, and sometimes we'll catch them
Speaker 3: thirty pounds. You know. Once they get above that thirty
Speaker 3: to forty pound raids are usually I think that they
Speaker 3: can keep up with the bigger ones and they start
Speaker 3: to migrate out with them. Once they get to be
Speaker 3: that size, I feel like these smaller ones will lag
Speaker 3: behind and they'll get picked off by something big because
Speaker 3: it's a big ocean out there, and there's bigger fish
Speaker 3: than tarpin out there, and these little fifteen pounders that
Speaker 3: try to keep up with these one hundred pounders just
Speaker 3: wouldn't be able to do it. So they like to
Speaker 3: find places to stage along along their migration and they'll
Speaker 3: sit there. You know, lots of places south of us
Speaker 3: in Mexico a couple of little mini fisheries, and you
Speaker 3: know north of us here too, you'll see some juvenile
Speaker 3: tarpin and some backwaters and stuff that'll ha until hang
Speaker 3: for a year or two even longer, until they get
Speaker 3: that size that they can keep up with those big ones.
Speaker 3: Like I said, we have a good juvenile population here,
Speaker 3: so tarp and that'll hang out year round. Some months
Speaker 3: are harder than others to find them, but they're always there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So when does it kind of start getting good.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're catching the juveniles and a few of those
Speaker 1: little bit bigger fish like those fifty sixty eighty pounders
Speaker 1: might show up. Is that is that pretty much when
Speaker 1: it starts warming up by June July.
Speaker 3: As soon as it starts as soon as it starts
Speaker 3: warming up and the water temperature hits about seventy to
Speaker 3: seventy five degrees, those tarp and start migrating north. They
Speaker 3: start coming up here to hang out. And then they'll
Speaker 3: be passing through like we're talking, you know, migratory fish. Yeah,
Speaker 3: probably end of May, beginning of June, you know, and
Speaker 3: they'll start pushing through, and then as it gets heavier,
Speaker 3: they'll push through it and they'll come back down. From
Speaker 3: what I've read and what I have seen, they'll come
Speaker 3: back down and pass through again, you know. And that's
Speaker 3: when you get a lot of them very big ones
Speaker 3: that are hugging the shores and stuff like that, very
Speaker 3: big ones that are here at the end of the season.
Speaker 1: You know, the silver king is definitely, you know, it's
Speaker 1: hard to say what's the most prestigious fish in the world,
Speaker 1: but definitely for fish you're gonna find anywhere near Inland,
Speaker 1: the tarpin has to be, you know, right there at
Speaker 1: the top of the list. I don't know a single
Speaker 1: angler on the planet that does not want to catch
Speaker 1: a tarpin if they know tarpin exists. And for Texas anglers,
Speaker 1: I mean, we have a tarpain alley up here on
Speaker 1: the upper coast by me, about forty fifty miles from me,
Speaker 1: down between High Island and San Luis, passed that area.
Speaker 1: There's some good fishing at different places around Port O'Connor,
Speaker 1: different pockets of tarpin. But you mentioned something earlier like
Speaker 1: you could probably catch in July, late July through September tarpin,
Speaker 1: particularly on any day out of High Island. But literally
Speaker 1: in that ninety day window you might have fifteen days
Speaker 1: you could fish out there. So I'm sure you guys,
Speaker 1: like everybody in Texas kind of has to work around
Speaker 1: the weather on this stuff. Yep.
Speaker 3: We work around the weather. The weather is the most
Speaker 3: important thing. I always say, the fish are out there.
Speaker 3: There's a lot more tarping than we think. We just
Speaker 3: can't get to them. If I get the good weather,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna tell my clients that I feel, you know,
Speaker 3: very confident. I'm going to get us the shots at them.
Speaker 3: I'm going to find the fish. Whether they're going to
Speaker 3: eat for us or not. That's that's a whole nother story.
Speaker 3: Because there they're picky some of guns, you know stuff.
Speaker 3: We can always find them. There's a lot of them there.
Speaker 3: We just need the weather. We need the opportunities is
Speaker 3: what we really need.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about once you got the weather, you know,
Speaker 1: the migrations kicking in. Your hearing some reports of fish
Speaker 1: moving over, maybe seeing them on some of your snook
Speaker 1: or trout charters. You're seeing some you know, some tarping
Speaker 1: out there moving around. What does a Brian Barrera tarp
Speaker 1: and fishing day look like for your clients? I mean,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? Are you going out there? You
Speaker 1: sit fishing, you drift and live bait. What's going on? Yep?
Speaker 3: I like to start off, you know, when when we
Speaker 3: got low light conditions, and I really like to try
Speaker 3: to syite cast those roles fish early. We'll either hang
Speaker 3: out at the Jed's or hang out a couple of
Speaker 3: spots I know where the tarpain like to get up
Speaker 3: and get active in the morning and show themselves and
Speaker 3: we'll try to sitecast them with artificials, usually early the
Speaker 3: first two hours of the day two and a half
Speaker 3: hours day, once the sun gets up a little bit,
Speaker 3: I'll go and you know, throw a net, get a
Speaker 3: couple of baits, whether we're doing live bay or dead
Speaker 3: bait that day, wherever they've been eating for me lately,
Speaker 3: and we'll start cruising around and looking for the big ones.
Speaker 3: And once they get to an area where I know
Speaker 3: they are, you know, I'll set out, usually one live
Speaker 3: bait or something or one dead bait something hanging off
Speaker 3: the back, and I'll have my clients up in the
Speaker 3: front trying to sitecast rollers or trying to blind cast
Speaker 3: in the pockets in certain areas where we know they
Speaker 3: hang out, and I'll see them on my GPS. You know,
Speaker 3: they're not always rolling on the top, but I see
Speaker 3: them on the GPS. I have the side imaging and
Speaker 3: I'll see them. You know, it's like out to the left,
Speaker 3: maybe twenty five yards on the GPS, they'll say it's
Speaker 3: actually feet, so it'll say fifty sixty feet. I'll say, okay,
Speaker 3: I just saw one pass by on the GPS about
Speaker 3: fifty feet to the left through a couple of blackcasts
Speaker 3: in that area. You hook up. Sometimes they hook up,
Speaker 3: sometimes they don't. You know, lots of times that fish
Speaker 3: that I see on the GPS is the first fish
Speaker 3: of like a twenty fish school, you know, so they
Speaker 3: cast right in there and hook up real quick. They're
Speaker 3: not necessarily hooking the one that I saw on the GPS,
Speaker 3: but they're hooking you know, fish that are there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you missed something key about tarpan earlier, and I
Speaker 1: experienced this in Florida back in April. You know, you
Speaker 1: think you said you had seven fish and and you
Speaker 1: had like half of that that you actually brought to
Speaker 1: the boat. That's probably a pretty good ratio. Tarpin and
Speaker 1: notorious for having a bony mouth and being difficult to hook,
Speaker 1: aren't they Yep?
Speaker 3: Definitely definitely, especially the small ones, twenty five pound fish,
Speaker 3: and we landed two of them. I'd be pretty happy,
Speaker 3: you know, because even those small ones jump out those
Speaker 3: really big ones. A lot of times you can get
Speaker 3: a hook in them, you know, And it depends also
Speaker 3: because it's a few Two of those were on artificial
Speaker 3: lou Da baitbuster and good sharp hooks. You know, I
Speaker 3: sharpened the hooks oven keep those good for them. But
Speaker 3: two of them are on circle hooks. You know, if
Speaker 3: you can get the big ones on the circle hooks
Speaker 3: and they run away from you, you've got a good
Speaker 3: chance of hooking them because that circle will get them
Speaker 3: right on the top of the the you know, when
Speaker 3: they pull it away. But if they eat it coming
Speaker 3: at you and jump at you, you've got less of
Speaker 3: a hook up ratio. Just because of the way that
Speaker 3: circle hook is named.
Speaker 1: We're going to take him in to check in with
Speaker 1: our partners at Texas Fishing Game. I am the editor
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Speaker 1: e newsletters. They current on everything affecting fishing, hunting, shooting, camping,
Speaker 1: and enjoying the glorious great outdoors. On things like the
Speaker 1: bait Buster. You do any kind of modifications with your hooks?
Speaker 1: Are you doing extra sharpening or anything in particular that
Speaker 1: might help with hook set? Are you just going that
Speaker 1: comes right out of the factory.
Speaker 3: I used to sharpen. I used to sharpen the doa
Speaker 3: bait Buster hooks right out of the of the pack
Speaker 3: at sharpen them. I fish a lot with Mark Nichols,
Speaker 3: the creator yep, and he would always remind me sharpen
Speaker 3: your hooks, sharpen your hooks. And you did that. But
Speaker 3: now RECENTLYDA came out with a new bait Buster, a
Speaker 3: new hook they uh, you know, a new weight to
Speaker 3: super heavy one, especially good for tarpin and casting. Further
Speaker 3: distances for them, but it's got to uh. I think
Speaker 3: it's like a black nickel hook. I'm not exactly sure
Speaker 3: they'll quote me on it, but it's a lot sharper
Speaker 3: of a It doesn't need to be sharpened at all.
Speaker 3: That thing is ready to go. And my numbers on
Speaker 3: tarp and have jumped up big time as far as
Speaker 3: the hookup ratio since using that new style of hooks
Speaker 3: that they went to, So I don't sharpen anymore.
Speaker 1: That's interesting, you know. I have to ask those questions
Speaker 1: because you got the guys out there that you know,
Speaker 1: any any little small detail like that can help that person.
Speaker 3: Sharpen. Yeah, sharpen the hooks when you're throwing anything for
Speaker 3: a tarp and if it doesn't if you poke it
Speaker 3: in your fingernail and it doesn't just stick into your
Speaker 3: fingernail you know pretty quickly and to stay there, then
Speaker 3: you need to sharpen it if you're gonna tarp and fish.
Speaker 3: Unless you got the fairy bomb hook set, you know, yeah,
Speaker 3: we got you. Yeah, yeah, But and I tell them,
Speaker 3: like set the hook like you're setting your on your
Speaker 3: bath that do it like three times, and if you
Speaker 3: survive the first jump, or two. We might be onto
Speaker 3: something you know.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed the program tonight and connect with
Speaker 1: me at the Chester. More on Instagram, Higher Calling Wildlife
Speaker 1: on face Facebook, Higher Calling dot Net the blog every
Speaker 1: month in Texas Fishing Game Magazine. God bless and have
Speaker 1: a great outdoors weekend.