Predators
and Nighthawks
Article from May
- Jun 2001 Buckeye Trapper
by Col.
Richard L. Stanley
It was a miserable night, one of those typical half rain and
half snow nights southeastern Ohio is famous for in December.
A night when all good Buckeyes should have been snuggled away
in their warm beds for the night.
We were chilled to the bone, soaking wet, too. My old partner,
Mark, and I were drying out before the fireplace after a nights
work on stakeout under a wet old oak tree overlooking an old logging
trail. We were in a rented cabin perched up high on the side of
a wooded hill overlooking a beautiful lake bordered by oak, hickory,
pine and old elms. "What a spot for my retirement years,"
I said out loud to no one in particular. Mark only grunted. He
wasn't much for talk when he felt and smelled like a wet old coon
dog.
After 40 years of chasing poachers, moonshiner's, and bad guys
in general; in the woods, from the lake, to the river, my mind
kept telling me it was about time to hang up the badge and Sam
Brown and unpack my old Blake and Lamb stop losses and bodygrips
and maybe try out some of those "new" soft catches.
Maybe even buy a little cabin down in Deer-John-Two-Bear's territory.
Just one more year, I whispered, just give me one good year.
I glanced over at Mark who was busy wringing the ice water out
of his boot socks, bare feet on the cold, rugless cabin floor.
Mark and I had set many a trap together, over the years, for both
the 4 legged and the 2 legged predators.
I had never personally met 'Ol Stanley Hawbaker along the trail,
but in roaming the upper and central eastern Adironadacks in the
early years I met many a gent who had sat with him by the campfire,
coffee and venison cooking. Maybe I even saw his tracks in the
snow a time or two. But his teachings had quite an influence on
me, both in my work as well as along the trapline. We're all hunters
in one way or another, you know.
Steam was rising from our wet clothes hanging on a rope in front
of the roaring fireplace. Maybe by morning, they'd be partly dry,
we hoped. Mark threw another short log on the fire and sparks
flew up the chimney. It was well past midnight and still the rain
pattered on the old tin roof. We were both cold and dog tired
and overworked. Did I say overworked? YES! We were not on the
vacation-hunting/trapping trip where we intended to be; high in
the Colorado Rockies. Instead, we were on the job. On duty 7 days
a week, assigned here in the forlorned, lonely strip-mining area
in southeastern Ohio, miles from any piece of civilization and
still more miles from our home base in Cuyahoga County. We had
some catchin' to do.
Our assignment originated when 'Ol Alfonso Daniel Black, an
old likeable coot that lives all over the Ohio/West Virginia mountain
area, where he lives by hunting, fishing and trapping, filed a
complaint. He was an outdoors legend in this rugged area where
Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia all come together along
the grand Ohio River. He wrote a nasty letter to the State demanding
a full-blown posse. He got us. He complained of the increasing
number of trap thieves and deer poachers jack-lighten' in the
strip country which he considers his own. He reported seeing commercial
hunters on the back road loading up trucks with deer carcasses
to be taken to the city and sold so wealthy "Sportsman Clubs"
could have their venison dinners without legally hunting the same.
This doesn't set well with the local licensed hunters and trappers;
hence our assignment and our cancelled elk hunt and beaver trapping
in the Rockies.
Mark and I both were almost "Senior Citizens" but
we still enjoyed a good hunt; man or beast. It's all the same,
if it's an illegal predator. Alfonso permitted us the use of his
tiny summer cabin as our base of operations with the Feds paying
the tab.
My old corncob briar was almost out. I promised myself I'd hit
the sack when it died and my coffee disappeared. I just couldn't
get to sleep. I kept imagining I heard shots being fired in the
far distance or vehicles on the road. Mark said, "That's
only the sap freezing it the trees, snapping the limbs as the
temp drops." I knew it, but it still bothered me.
This was our third night working a single county area staking
out back logging roads and open meadows. It was beautiful, almost
virgin trapping country, streams, ponds, marsh areas, and tracks
galore. Another place on my list of places I'd rather live in.
We'd mark the mud tracks on the roadway and check them frequently
to see if we had any visitors in or out of the area. Three nights
of absolute "nothing", except rain, snow, mud, and nighthawks.
The night birds would start their songs about 2100 hours (9p.m.)
and we'd have steady "music" from the whippoorwill,
several owls, perhaps a nightingale, a couple of restless ducks
on the pond, and a lonely fox "barking" at everything.
A slow shuffling in the leaves behind me one night caused my
hair to rise, until our little nocturnal 'possum came ambling
by without even a friendly grin at me sitting there all stressed
out. We hung around the cabin in the daytime, keeping warm and
drying our clothes, eating our biscuits and coffee, trying to
make the cabin look "unlived in". It gets mighty miserable
sitting on a log under a dripping tree all night long, straining
your eyes and ears through the darkness searching for a beam of
light or the drone of an old pickup truck coming up the hill in
darkness.
But that was our job, way back then. Even then, records show
there were literally thousands of deer, bear, and fur bearing
animals illegally taken from the three state area to supply the
clubs and organizations catering to the "sportsman"
who paid predators to harvest their prey for them.
As I recall it was on the fifth night of our cold watch that
we first heard the approaching vehicles, motors and transmissions
growling along, coming up the winding logging road where we overlooked
a big meadow flanked by deep woods where the deer rested during
the day. After dusk the deer, one by one, filed slowly out of
the wooded shadows to browse on the tender grass shoots in the
meadow. One night we counted over 100 deer in this one field,
which sloped down to a marsh where we also were enjoying a couple
of days trapping muskrats. I'd daydream of coming back here to
live someday after retirement. One of the jobs few benefits was
being assigned to interesting areas where you thought you'd like
to return to someday, after retirement, to trap and live the good
life. We all had our secret notebooks full of such places.
We were about 100 yards apart but after working in harness together
for so many years, we knew each other's thoughts and worked well
as a team.
With our adrenaline pumping, we watched and waited, not unlike
the deer or turkey hunter on a stand. There were two older pickup
trucks, three men in each, laboring noisily up the logging road
towards us. You'd think the noise of the trucks would frighten
the deer, but they were used to the noise around the strip mines
and ignored the trucks. Both vehicles reached the center of the
meadow spacing themselves about 100 feet apart and stopped. Dead
silence. We watched and waited for what seemed like an eternity,
not daring to move for fear they'd see us in the faint moonlight.
Their powerful spotlights snapped on; three on each truck, spotting
and holding on the closest deer. The animals snorted, blowing
steam from their nostrils but stood perfectly still, motionlessly
staring into the spotlights as though hypnotized. Within seconds
6 shots rang out, echoing and re-echoing from the distant hills.
Six deer hit the frozen ground as if struck by lightening. It
was a slaughter. The rest of the herd milled slightly about, but
did not bolt. They stood nervously pawing the ground by their
fallen comrades as if wondering what had happened, the others
continued to stare at the deadly inviting spotlights. An entire
herd ready for the slaughter.
With their eyes trained on the herd, the poachers failed to
see Mark and I approaching from different angles, shotguns at
the ready. Their shots continued to ring out resembling the firing
range at Camp Perry. Deer were falling. With our Winchester Model
12s at our hips pointing directly at the trucks occupants, we
slowly crept up to the far side of each truck. Mark snapped his
powerful head lamp on first, lighting up his truck in a glare
and loudly announcing our presence with his powerful voice, shouting
out our police identities and commanding them to lay down their
weapons as they were under arrest.
They all appeared totally stunned and scared, and for a brief
moment they looked about for an avenue of escape, casting glances
left and right. I immediately cancelled their thoughts when I
snapped my blazing headlight on, brandishing my 12 gauge toward
them. For all they knew there were ten of us in the shadows awaiting
their reaction. They gave up peacefully. Seldom do we have active
resisters who try to fight their way out into the shadows. There
have been times when they tried and running gun battles ensued,
but eventually we'd round them up either for the jail, hospital,
or the morgue.
There were some tough characters living in those hills from
Zanesville to Steubenville (Dean Martin's old home) and to Wheeling.
Homicide was common back in the hills. There were also some of
the finest hunters and trappers in the country living throughout
those old hills. But that's another story.
This particular night the poachers were not the commercial type
killers we were looking for. Nevertheless, they were illegal poachers
and predators. They stood quietly by their trucks, beautiful expensive
rifles lying at their feet, frightened faces with strong alcohol
on their breath. My notes recall two were teen-agers and the other
4 were teachers and businessmen. All out for an illegal thrill
hoping to get a nice buck to brag about the next morning; a set
of horns for the office wall. To a man they admitted they'd heard
of the commercial poachers being so successful they thought they'd
give it a try as "no one ever got caught".
Come daybreak we had 6 men, 6 rifles, 12 deer, 2 revolvers,
and 2 pickup trucks at the village court awaiting the judge. The
court kept the deer for the children's home and confiscated the
rifles and the trucks, per Federal law. A stiff fine and license
forfeiture ruined their future hunting days. We knew after checking
court records, the men were all good citizens and duly licensed
to hunt. But, under the influence of alcohol at the club party
listening to the stories passed out by the poachers of the big
herds waiting to be shot at night; they lost all sense of reasoning
and reverted to the illegal "sport" of jacklighting.
They became predators of the night.
In this ugly undertaking hundreds of deer are wounded and left
to die in the woods. Hunters accidentally shoot one another and
lost shots find their way into neighboring homes and victims.
We interviewed a farmer who had 44 head of cattle shot in the
field at night by poachers for the thrill of shooting "something".
We hope through education and proper law enforcement to curtail
this wasteful, illegal, wanton practice, but it seems each generation
brings new problems and new faces.
All of us in the conservation field hope that those of you reading
this message who may jacklight an occasional deer will reconsider
and keep in mind; this illegal sport is very dangerous and expensive
when you get caught.
Sooner or later you will meet me or my associates along the
trail, hopefully to brew friendly coffee together over the campfire
and warmly talk of our retirement dreams. That sure was a beautiful
cabin perched up on that hill back in that promising valley. Someday...
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