The Poachers – A Tale

Many years ago when I was young, I ran into a couple of men who spent a great deal of time outdoors. They especially enjoyed rifle deer season, spending as much time in pursuit of whitetails as they could throughout the season. They would have been heroes to today’s deer managers, who advocate the slaughter of deer. However, at that time, hunters could legally kill only one deer per year.

Another of their favorite activities involved questionable fishing. They told tales of catching huge trout from large reservoirs. They did this fishing at night, and they fished from precarious positions on the breasts of dams. After being regaled by several of their stories, I visited one of the reservoirs and was surprised to find that there were no posted signs anywhere near the dam. I had believed that fishing in watershed waters was illegal; but from the appearance of things, it might not have been. (Of course, posted signs that once might have been there could have been removed.)

One also told me of fishing in a well-known rod and gun club’s private water. “I wash my truck (a fancy one), and I drive right up to the clubhouse. The club has so many members that they don’t know one another. I just act like I belong there. I rig up a fly rod, take my little girl with me, and go down below the clubhouse and fish. I only keep a couple of the trout I catch. They’re usually nice ones, but they’re not as big as the ones we catch in the reservoirs.”

He was a big man, built like a heavyweight boxer. His friend was built more like a grizzly bear, except much stronger. It was said that he once tore off the locked door of the cab of a tractor-trailer whose driver had run him off the road.

“We like to fish the reservoirs alone,” they both told me. “One night a couple other guys came out along the top of a dam to fish; but they left when we asked to see their reservoir fishing permits.” I would have left, too, after encountering these powerful men in the dark.

They fished with live sunfish. “Some nights we don’t catch anything; other nights we land several that are 20 inches or longer.”

I didn’t really believe them until I found the heads and tails of eight huge trout spread out on my work desk one morning. “Want to fish with us?” they asked me several times, but I never did.