Poachers Caught!: Adventures of a Northwoods Game Warden

Tom Chapin is a native of Hibbing, Minnesota. He earned his bachelor’s degree in zoology in 1972 from the University of Minnesota, Duluth, after a two-year tour in the U.S. Army. Most of his 29-year career as a natural resource conservation officer has been spent in the Grand Rapids, Minnesota, district where he also served as area supervisor for seven years. Chief among the honors he has received include the 1978 “Itasca County Law Enforcement Officer of the Year” and the 1985 “Minnesota Conservation Officer of the Year. Chapin has also served as adjunct faculty, teaching law enforcement courses at Itasca and Hibbing Community Colleges. Recently the author’s campaigning and testimony prompted the Minnesota State Legislature to enact a gross over-limit law. Known as the “Chapin Bill,” this law became effective March 1, 2003. It increases penalties, including the loss of hunting and fishing privileges, for violators who take large quantities of game and fish. Throughout his career as a game warden, Chapin took hundreds of photographs documenting illegal activities. These photos, many of which are included here, were an integral part of Chapin’s group presentations which have both educated and entertained audiences interested in natural resources issues. Tom and his wife Sandy raised daughters Colleen, Anita, and Beth in Grand Rapids where he has recently retired from public service.

Information received from the public in relation to game and fish violations is sporadic at best. The mind-set which prevents a person from going that extra step and reporting what he or she has witnessed or strongly suspected is nothing new in the chronicles of law enforcement. People plain and simple don’t want to get involved after an illegal act has been observed or information has been acquired through friends or relatives. It takes a tremendous effort for a witness to move from discussing the event to actually picking up a phone and reporting a crime.

There are many reasons for this indifference. It ranges from common fear to distrust of the law enforcement community in maintaining anonymity to just being branded as a stool pigeon. This is especially true in game and fish enforcement.

Although most sportsmen’s hearts are in the right place and they value justice, there seems to be a wall of comradeship that is difficult to break down. So when a call comes in that appears to expose an ongoing breach of the law, it’s taken very seriously by all conservation officers and immediately becomes a top priority.

One such concerned citizen picked up a phone one hot Friday afternoon in July and relayed the fact that five fishermen in two vehicles were heading south out of state with a lot of fish. One was towing a U-haul trailer. He thought we might be interested in “checking them out.” From the inflection in his voice, the anonymous caller seemed to be having a difficult time with his emotions and hung up quickly after declaring that the parties in question left fifteen minutes ago.

It was only about a twenty-minute drive for the vehicles to reach the city, and I was ten minutes out of town, so it would be a rush to intercept them, if it was even possible. I assumed they would be taking the most direct route of U.S. Highway 2, so as I kicked it down I called two other officers for assistance. Circumstances were in our favor that bright afternoon because the two officers and I were in position for only five minutes when we saw the two pickup trucks speeding south out of town.

The initial stop was no problem with both units pulling onto the shoulder and stopping in tandem. All five men jumped out and walked back to our patrol cars and asked us the reason for the delay. We explained to all five we had information they might be in possession of a large quantity of fish, possibly an over-limit, and these fish might be located in one of their vehicles.

I immediately observed their reactions for any signs of guilt or physical irregularities. They seemed cool and laid-back. Their talkativeness and casual demeanor remained steady during further questioning about the whereabouts of their fish. All of them agreed when questioned that the fishing was great in the area and that they had eaten all the fish they caught on their trip. They said they had no fish and that we could look through anything we wanted. I began having a slight doubt about the complaint call, but I’d seen this type of cool conduct before, and this wasn’t going to dissuade us from searching, especially when consent had already been given.

Obviously the first place to look was the trailer being towed. I lifted the handle and opened the latch, allowing one of the doors to swing open. The thing was packed to the gills. There was every kind of fishing, camping and cooking gear imaginable. Sleeping bags and sacks of clothes rolled out onto the ground. Bundles of fishing rods, nets, tackle boxes and coolers were piled up to the roof. It was like a search nightmare knowing that everything would have to be removed in order to perform an adequate inspection. But this was a legitimate complaint so that’s exactly what we started to do.

One by one, each article was taken from the trailer and laid on the ground. All this time, the gentlemen were continuing to claim they possessed no fish, especially after we had gone through five coolers full of food and kitchen items. After I had removed about two-thirds of the contents and had worked my way to the front of the trailer, which was finally visible, I heard a low hum or whine that sounded like a small, purring motor. Because of the road noise from the passing traffic, it was difficult to identify the exact location until I reached the far left corner of the trailer. Pulling back a mat, I put my hand on a white box. The container had a slight vibration in harmony with the sound. There it was in all its 6-cubic-foot glory: a 12-volt chest freezer. I signaled my fellow officers that I may have what we’re looking for, and one of them brought a flashlight into the dark corner, opened the lid, and peered into the compartment.

“Yeah, looks like you’re right. Appears to be many packages of something,” he said.

My partner grabbed one of the packages, brought it out into the daylight, and asked the men what it was. There was no answer from any of the guys, so we opened it up, and we found ourselves holding five semi-frozen northern pike fillets. The white package marked “2 nort” on the outside, I assumed meant two northern pike. Either they counted wrong, or this was another deception tactic.

We removed all the packages from the freezer into a garbage bag and set them outside on the grassy ditch. Package after package, all containing an extra fillet, were lined up, opened and their contents counted. The fishermen, now turned suspects, were sitting in a cluster alongside the road hardly giving us a glance. They knew the little scheme was all over and were probably contemplating their punishment.

Some of the packages were frozen so hard that separating and counting without thawing was impossible. In those cases we just went by the package’s markings. The total came to a minimum of 152 northern pike―137 over their limit! As we took the poachers to the courthouse a mile away, our conversations turned to the same topic they always do after we discover something like this: the greed factor and the accumulation mentality.

Approximately $3,900 in fines were assessed, but there’s no guarantee that any monetary fine is a large enough deterrent to stifle this type of behavior. At the time of this violation, Minnesota statutes did not allow the court to revoke their fishing privileges, even though research has proven that removal of a person’s right to hunt or fish is the most effective deterrent of them all. The new gross over-limit passed on March 1, 2003, allowing for license revocation would certainly have forced these guys to examine their behavior a little closer.

Details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Adventure Publications; Illustrated edition (April 30, 2007)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 200 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1591932068
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1591932062
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.2 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.9 x 0.6 x 8.9 inches