As They Say It Takes All Kinds

Count: 372

Print

“Sometimes a warden doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry,” said Big Timber FWP game warden George Anderson.   During the summer of 2000, Anderson received a call from the Sweet Grass County Sheriff’s dispatch about people illegally fishing the Boulder River.   Parked on the shoulder of a gravel road as he took down the vehicle description, the warden glanced over and saw the identical vehicle passing him.   The three men in the truck looked like they’d seen a ghost as they sped by.

Anderson turned his patrol truck around to pursue the suspects, now about a mile in front of him.   “I notified the Sweet Grass County Under Sheriff that the vehicle was trying to out run me and that I might need help stopping them at the edge of town,” Anderson said.   He knew the suspects weren’t going to get far because the only road out of the area passes within a few blocks of the Sheriff’s Office.

Actually, the suspects only made it a couple of miles down the road before their vehicle’s water pump went out.   As Anderson approached, a huge plume of steam was coming from the engine of the disabled vehicle.   He learned early in the conversation with the vehicles occupants that all three were fishing without licenses, trespassing and fishing with bait in waters open to artificial lures only.   He also found that the driver did not have a driver’s license or liability insurance on the vehicle.

“We used water from a nearby irrigation ditch in the radiator and I located a licensed driver to get them back to town,” Anderson said.   He followed the vehicle to the Sweet Grass County Sheriff’s Office to continue interviewing them.   That’s when he discovered that two of the men had caught and kept fish in a ‘catch and release only’ area and that they’d thrown the fish in the ditch shortly after a witness confronted them.

“After I issued each fellow two citations, I turned them over to the under sheriff who wrote the driver additional citations,” Anderson said.   “As you might suspect by now, only one of the individuals paid his debt to society. The other two have misdemeanor warrants out for their arrests for failing to appear in court!”