_game Warden Dog Recipes

_LAS PIEDRAS

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• For those of you who didn't take high school Spanish this translates to 'The Rocks'. Las Piedras Ranch owned by Dwain and Sandy Riney of Montgomery, Texas, is aptly named. Located in Real County, WNW of San Antonio, Las Piedras Ranch exemplifies the Texas 'Hill Country'! Their ranch, though not large by Texas standards, supports a healthy population of native wildlife and is also host to numerous exotic species. These wild, free ranging exotics escaped from neighboring ranches years ago. Dwain and Sandy recently invited me down to cook for some of their hunters. This particular hunt is a 'special hunt' for both the Riney family and the hunters. Once a year Dwain and Sandy donate a hunt for exotic species at Las Piedras to the Montgomery County Cattle Barons' Ball and benefit auction. The money raised from this annual event benefits the Montgomery County Unit of the American Cancer Society. In the course of my visit Dwain pulled out the 'ranch recipe box' and selected several favorites of his and Sandy's that he thought I'd like. In addition Sandy has since called me with a couple of other old family favorites. We hate to think of family heirlooms disappearing, but it happens when you prepare these recipes. My thanks to Dwain and Sandy for sharing them and inviting me down to share their corner of heaven in the Texas Hill Country!Spiced with More Tall Tales - Appetizers

_HOW TO COOK A COOT

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• If you're not a duck hunter or married to a duck hunter, just skip this recipe. Personally, I've never tried to cook a coot, primarily because I've never even shot at an "Ivory Billed Mallard". Remember, this is the guy who will eat every thing except grits and green lima beans. In this modern age, it seems to me, too many people blame events in their childhood for the mistakes or failures they make as adults. Some rightly so, but I can't help but feel a lot of it is over done!So where is all this leading, you ask yourself? Yup! you guessed it, my childhood. Since my dad first took me duck hunting at age three, the list of things I've done in life longer than I've duck hunted is fairly short. Memories of those first duck hunts are still vivid. Back in that distant past, I learned that the preferred duck of those who wait at home while others duck hunt, to be mallards. Those of the green headed variety! My dad, being a pretty fair hand with a shotgun, seldom got skunked in those days. He'd been there before, but it was a new experience for me, just four years old. About the only thing flying in the marsh that day were coots, which Dad had several different adjectives to describe. I didn't understand why dad didn't shoot them as they patterned by. At that time I obviously thought-ducks are ducks! Wrong! How long I pestered Dad to shoot them, I can't remember. What I do remember is him saying, "Mother didn't like any kind of ducks except those with green heads" and it wouldn't be very smart to take something home she didn't like. Though I was just four years old, that part I understood! I'm sure Dad first passed this recipe on that day. Over the years, Dad repeated this recipe so many times I've memorized it without ever having cooked it.A Back Country Guide to Outdoor Cooking Spiced with Tall Tales - Fowl & Fish

_GAME WARDEN SCRAMBLE

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• Start with the local rancher giving a domestic goat to a subject. Have the subject skin the goat in his yard. Stir in a nearsighted informant who sees the subject skinning the goat. Have the informant find the game warden and advise him of subject skinning a deer. Let the excited game warden stew for 4 hours waiting for search warrant.Once game warden has received a search warrant and is thoroughly stewed, let him serve it on subject and find goat.Mix all together and you have a wasted day. Put egg on game warden's face.THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: "A game warden can always be relied upon to waste a day trying to get your goat."A Back Country Guide to Outdoor Cooking Spiced with Tall Tales - Meat in Camp

_GAME WARDEN DOG

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• When I hired on as a conservation officer for Idaho Department of Fish & Game (IDFG) in September of 1978, Snoose turned six months old. I'd come by her four months earlier when I ran into a friend at IDFG Headquarters where we both had meetings. Russell had hired on as an officer a couple of years earlier and I still worked as a Wildlife Technician. At a break in the meetings I caught Russ up on what I'd been doing and told him about the awesome log home I had rented near Wayan in SE Idaho. He told me he had the perfect pup to live with me in such a great place. He still had two female pups from a litter of nine who needed homes. Being a canine sexist at the time, I told him 'No Thanks!' No females for me. I'd always had males. Apparently, Russ didn't have any better luck peddling those two pups during the day 'cause when I arrived at the restaurant that evening he bought me a beer, one of many that night, and started his sales pitch again.After rolling out of bed the next morning I needed three things really bad. First, and most important, a couple of aspirin, followed by a cup of coffee and, last, a hot shower...in that order. Not being the first guy to wake up with the events of the previous evening being a little fuzzy, I 'thought' I remembered writing Russ a check for $75.00 late the night before. (It was brought to my attention later that I actually wrote the check about closing time.) When I got out of the shower I looked in my checkbook. Sure enough, the self carbon copy of the last check said 'Pay to the Order Of' Russ Kozacek. My consolation being at the time that although Russ did succeed in selling me a dog, I hadn't bought dinner or a beer all night! Anyway...Snoose moved to the big log house in Wayan with me. She spent the summer leaning how to fetch, stay out from underfoot a saddlehorse, and how to load in a pickup truck.The transformation from civilian to game warden doesn't happen overnight. How successful a game warden is depends on both tangible and intangible criteria. One of the tangible criteria being, of course, the apprehension of violators who go home with pieces of paper labeled 'Defendant's Copy' in their wallets! Six weeks into my career and hunting seasons in full swing, the only citations my name appeared on listed me as 'Assisting Officer.' With elk season a week old my ego and confidence hit rock bottom. Sure, I had encountered some folks with problems, but their stories always seemed truthful to me. So I'd give them a weak verbal warning and go off in search of a 'big game case.' At the time I naively believed everyone always told the truth to the game warden!On Sunday of the second weekend of elk season, Snoose and I left the house in the gray light of dawn, headed for Jacknife and Tincup Creeks. I started making the rounds of trailheads and campgrounds thinking that if things didn't change, I would find myself back driving a truck. About noon I checked a camp of moose hunters breaking camp after getting a bull packed out. I then headed for McCoy Creek. I hoped that I could find a violation in my neighboring officer's area! By mid-afternoon, and several camps later, my luck hadn't changed. Discouraged doesn't even come close to how I felt. I stopped at a creek thinking Snoose might enjoy a swim, as the day was getting warm. My heart dropped when I got out of the truck! No Snoose! I started backtracking, asking folks I'd just checked if they remembered seeing my dog in the back of the truck. No luck!I headed back to Tincup Creek, not believing I could have missed her for such a long time. Finally I ended back up in the camp where I'd checked the moose hunters. There she lay contentedly chewing on a leg bone that they'd discarded. Apparently she hadn't missed me at all. After chastising her I loaded her back up and decided to check a couple of camps where no one had been present in the camp on my earlier swing through.As I pulled into the first one, a fellow came riding in leading a couple of packhorses. He told me he'd killed an elk, and that it was boned out in meat sacks on the pack stock. I felt pretty good writing him a citation for an unattached tag while he unloaded the packhorses. But something still sort of gnawed at my subconscious. Why I felt compelled to go through the meat sacks I'll never know! Unless one has the space to lay out the individual pieces of boned meat to determine their anatomical location you can't make sense of what your looking at. This guy and his buddies had made it easy. When I located a heart in the third sack of meat it didn't raise any alarm. In the fourth sack, though, I found another elk heart, which did set off all sorts of warning bells. Then it was obvious! These guys had killed two elk and tried to disguise the fact by boning the meat and mixing it up. I didn't hesitate to give Snoose the credit for leading me to that breakthrough big game case.I spent two thirds of my career with Snoose! Over the years she assisted me on several cases and on occasion made cases outright for me. Snoose didn't spend much time at home those first ten years. Most of the time she rode in the back of the truck, but fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, drift boats, and rafts suited her just fine. Except for being in a duck blind, she was happiest trailing along ahead of my saddle horse as I pulled a pack string somewhere in the back country! The day finally arrived when it got too difficult for her to jump up into a pickup truck.Snoose spent seven years in retirement before she passed on just a couple days short of her fourteenth birthday. I still consider that $75.00 the best money I ever spent. A couple of years ago I returned the favor to Russ when I sold him a female pup out of my Chesapeake, Sis! Russ just wrote a check and saved me the expense of buying him dinner and beer for an evening!Spiced with More Tall Tales - Dedications