← The Origins Foundation Podcast
The Origins Foundation Podcast
Episode 617 - Sam Lawry || Sledgehammer On Outlaws
00:58:23
Sam Lawry, a self-professed “sandhill crane” (that is, someone who migrates from Montana to Arizona and back annually, rather than a traditional “snowbird”), has been in the wildlife conservation field for 43 years, with the vast majority of that time spent on the wildlife law enforcement side of conservation. Sam regales Robbie with stories around wildlife law enforcement and the work that he has been involved with. An incredible conversation with a man who has been in the proverbial trenches of wildlife conservation for many decades.
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- [00:00]
A
Sam Lowry calls himself a sandhill crane that migrates from Montana down to Arizona every year. Sam's been in the wildlife conservation hunting field for 43 years. Sam's been on the Meater podcast. He's been on the BHA podcast, and now, finally, he joined us on our podcast. Sam's a legend. Sam has stories. Sam has philosophical thoughts about ethics of hunting, pursuing wild things. He's got two books. And so this podcast really starts discussing sort of philosophical things that, you know, we like to talk about. But then halfway through, it switches to a very funny mode because Sam starts talking about stories of his outlaw days and dealing with kaboon vipers and Yahoo's dove hunting. It's an exceptional podcast. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting Sam. I can't wait to have him back on the podcast. So enjoy it. So five years ago, there was a reason why I started this movement. And the truth then is the truth now that we need to champion our narrative. We need to champion the truth around what we do and who we are.
- [01:10]
B
There's a sweet spot with a gun, you know, too heavy and it's a burden to walk with. Too light and you whipping it.
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A
Why is the project so important to the hunting community?
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B
Who. I think it's not only important, I think it's vital. I think it's just in time.
- [01:26]
A
It's like snakes and ladders. You guys are climbing the ladder, and then somebody does something stupid and you just slide down. That is such an amazing analogy. Snakes and ladders.
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B
Yeah.
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A
You know, ivory, in my opinion, was the plastic of its age. Okay.
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B
The expenses were going up. It goes a long way with families. We have families that do need it.
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A
Me close this door because I have a little wiener dog.
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B
What?
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A
You are. You're laughing because I said wiener.
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B
I'm really glad you finished the sentence out.
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A
I'm sorry. The first happen. What are we doing here today? You're telling the whole world. You're saying you're a sandhill crane, not a snowbird leaving Montana to go to Arizona.
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B
That's exactly right. I used to actually survey sandhill cranes wintering in Arizona, and they were from the Rocky Mountain population, so they nested in northern Montana and Alberta, and then they'd come back to Arizona. So I. I don't want to be a snowbird. I want to be a sandhill crane.
- [02:37]
A
I like it. I like it. I think we should champion the idea of people migrating from the north to down to the south as sandhill cranes.
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B
There you go.
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A
Maybe we'll get a little bit More interest in them, and we can open up some more hunting seasons. You know that Wisconsin, Michigan are potentially considering it next year.
- [02:56]
B
Yeah. You know what? It always. Well, it just. It was always a pretty interesting conflict because the. The winter migration would attract, you know, thousands of birders at the same time. You'd want to have the sport harvest. The certain populations of cranes are doing very well, and it was a kind of a tenuous little bit of a tightrope to walk. You'd be down there hunting, and then a school bus would pull up with bird watchers. Anyway.
- [03:26]
A
But I hear you loud and clear, Sam. Welcome to the Origins foundation podcast. I know we've been trying to get together for months. Jim Inglis connected us. I was away. You were in Montana with no signal, you were like, all right, I'm finally in Arizona. Let's make this happen.
- [03:44]
B
Good, good. Thanks for. Thanks for having me. I think it'll be fun.
- [03:47]
A
You've had multiple careers, right, Sam? And I try to, like, capture your multiple careers in the hat choice. So I've got, like, a hundred hats, and I pick a different hat for every podcast, and so I picked a hat that has a quail on it.
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B
Oh, awesome. Awesome. Yeah.
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A
The fact that you, obviously, Arizona, has quail, which is part of your career, you've worked for pheasants forever, slashed quails forever now. And I guess the only question I had was at. Is it Telluride or. Telluride.
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B
Teller.
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A
Yeah, Teller. Teller Wildlife Refuge. Were there any quail on Teller?
- [04:22]
B
No, no, it was most pheasants. Pheasants. We did have Rignac pheasants and a lot of waterfowl. Some really great waterfowl hunting.
- [04:30]
A
Well, I tried. I tried.
- [04:32]
B
Yeah. But, yeah, it was a. I could tell. I teach a little class on careers in wildlife, and I always tell these students that, you know, my career was 43 years. It's a long, long ride. And each chapter opened up a new door of challenges, and I don't regret any of those chapters, but it always would open up doors to jump from one opportunity to the next. And it's a great career to get into. So I encourage and do encourage young people to follow their dream.
- [05:07]
A
Sam, you've been in this game for a while, so I want to ask some sort of questions, Germaine, to sort of the longevity of what you've done in the wildlife career. And I think I'll start with, you know, we. We obviously face a torrent of anti use, anti hunting, you know, rhetoric narrative today. I guess what Was that like in the beginning, like when you first got into this 40 years ago? Right. We're talking, you know, I'm assuming early 80s. Was the, was the environment like that the same as it is today?
- [05:48]
B
No, I don't think so. I mean I can remember when I went to school, I went to school at Humboldt State in Northern California and it was a wildlife, very appraised wildlife program. And I can remember the professor, like in Wildlife 101, starting out on day one, asked for a. About 57 students were in the class as I recall and he said, how many of you hunt and fish? And probably 90% of us raised our hands.
- [06:20]
A
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B
Good luck. And he literally said, the rest of you, the 10 percenters, you probably ought to think about selling real estate and a good foundation of what wildlife management is all about. Unless you, you know, can actively pursue wild things. And, and, and then, you know, I look back at, at stages of my career where I would be in a hiring position and interviewing young professionals. And again, the majority of them had a background with, with hunting and fishing. And in my latest position with Fentons Forever, we were putting biologists on the ground throughout 11 Western states. My job was. And the majority of them did not hunt and fish, and you would slowly integrate them into that patronage.
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A
Where did that come from, Sam?
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B
They watched wildlife shows on tv and, and that's what they wanted to do. They wanted to, you know, save the world and, and, and as you expose them, particularly in Fence Forever and Quail Forever, which is, you know, kind of based on a hunting and, and Blaze Orange and Bird Dogs. They soon adopted that as, as a sport, if you will, and, and, and then realized the value of it. And I think exposing people to that kind of an organization, whether it's Elk foundation or Ducks Unlimited or whatever to these young professionals is a vital element in our wildlife management today and many state wildlife agencies. You know, I can look back, Robbie, at being on the Pacific Flyway subcommittee, which is the regulatory body for setting migratory game bird laws. And all of the biologists on that committee were avid waterfowl hunters. And I bet if you look at that same committee today, it's probably not. It's probably more of a non game majority looking at migratory birds in general, not just waterfowl. So yeah, I think it has changed.
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A
Yeah, it's interesting. Interesting. The other thing that you hear a lot of is how bad we have it.
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B
Okay.
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A
And I honestly think we've got it.
- [12:01]
B
Good.
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A
I obviously come from a different perspective. Right. I come from a country that didn't have, doesn't have public lands. Hunting opportunities are very limited for somebody who just wants to go hunt if not non existent in that world. And you look at wildlife populations today, we're arguably living the heyday of wildlife, right. Look back 40 years from when you started. Am I correct? Is that a correct assumption?
- [12:37]
B
You certainly are in some regards. I mean I look at it and go. And I think if you ponder that latest book I put together on the pursuit of wild things I talk about in my lifetime, I've seen the abalone season on the north coast of California go from a generous limit of seven abalone a day to now it's closed. And that's not necessarily all tied to over harvesting. It certainly has a lot to do with the warming of the currents and the disappearance of bull kelp and things like that. But all of a sudden you look at certain species that are, let's say, not doing as well and, and while we might have shot seven pintail in 1970, you can't anymore. And so on the other hand you look at, and I think I, we're, we're all well aware of the, the populations of things like snow geese and white tail deer and, and yeah, you're absolutely right. The opportunity to partake in those kinds of hunting opportunities is, is vastly probably better than it was 50 years ago.
- [13:50]
A
No, you make a good point that there's, it's, you know, very species specific in terms of when you think about, you know, what's available today, what wasn't available back then.
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B
Yeah. And I think it's important, I think as us hunters see this shift and maybe one species is not doing as well and yet others are doing very well. And waterfowl is a good example. I can remember literally hunting and the prize duck was a northern pintail and you'd want to shoot seven pintail. And as those populations declined, you started accepting the fact that, you know, this one bird limit of pintail is okay. We're gonna, we're gonna help this out a little bit by reducing sport harvest and see if we can turn this trend around. And it's okay now to go shoot seven mallards, which, which is still a nice thing to do. So I think you have to be flexible and adaptable to some of the, the ups and downs of different wildlife population.
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A
Would you say duck hunting is your, is your. As a love of yours, the love of yours. I look so, look at all the, I look at all the pictures behind you. It looks like you've got a bunch of duck stamps, you know, framed up on the wall.
- [15:06]
B
Yeah, I'm, I'm part duck. I mean there's just, there's something about, you know, I've listened to it and we've, we've all heard, you know, you, you sit in an aspen forest and smell the decomposition of aspen leaves in the fall as an elk is bugling. And it's pretty hard to top. And there's a lot of people that, you know, they live for that. And I did, I mean I certainly was an avid bow hunter for elk, but there's something in my brain that just gets kindled by sitting in a freezing colding marsh, you know, smelling decomposing methane gas from the, from the mud and just waiting for that wind to pick up and see a bunch of mallards coming towards the decoys. I don't think that'll ever leave me. No.
- [15:50]
A
It's interesting people. You know, from a hunting perspective, I think this is something that is very difficult to describe to someone who's not a hunter. The thing that really gets, and I hate to use this phrase, but I'll use it gets people off, I. E. Like gets them really hooked in and really loves the, the activity is, is the idea of fooling mother Nature. And it's really, I guess maybe a primal component of who we are and what we do. Because you're thinking about this, you're interacting with her, right? You're embedded, you, you're embedding yourself in her. You're a part of her, not a part of her, right? You're sitting with her, you're interacting with her. And for, you know, I had. Oh geez, I'm gonna forget his. Because I, I mentioned Jim English to start with. In our interaction. There's a, a waterfowler in the delta of Mississippi. He used to work for a coal company, now works for Drake. Jim. Ah, he's gonna kill me. Anyway, we filmed him, we did a Blood Origins episode on him and it was called quacks or quackers. And what Jim said to me was that it was the sort of this connection between him and the duck and it was that he could make a call and he could watch that duck who's flying away from him and he could call and that duck would react and it would change its trajectory and would do what he wanted it to do, Just like a turkey does or just like an elk does or any sort of interaction. And it's almost like, I don't know, it's some sort of primal. I think I'd love to hear what you think this primal like thread inside of us back hearken back to the days where we're leaving the cave and we have to go and do what we need to do to bring food back into the cave. Yes, ambush techniques were probably a part of it, but we must have learned like this is what this thing sounds like and I'm going to call it towards me into the place where I need it to be.
- [18:11]
B
Yeah, no, I think you're, I think you got a good point. I, I think when you, when you're talking about that, it makes me think of again going back to the duck arena. The first decoys ever found in the United States were in Nevada. They were in a cave and they were made of reeds and they're canvas backs. And so we're talking. I can't remember exactly how old they are, but let's just say a thousand years or so. You know, even though back then it was 100% to survive, they wanted the food. They weren't going out there to, and maybe not to 100% degree, but to have a good time and drink hot chocolate and sit by your, your heater and shoot ducks. They were out there getting their food and they had decoys. So they at that point were fooling mother Nature, if you will. And, and that's carried on. I think the other thing that hit me is those of us that have hunted all of our life, I think if you sat down and asked 10 guys or gals that have hunted all their life, what is it? Is it the fooling or is it all the other stimuli around you in that, let's just say marsh again or that aspen grove and then compare that to new hunters. And I mentioned this in that book too, that at one point we had Keller Refuge. We had a woman's waterfowl weekend for first time ladies that wanted to go duck hunting. And we taught them all about decoys and calls and blind placement and waterfowl Identification. And in the beginning, we asked them, why are you taking this class? A couple of them said, to get away from my husband because I don't like hunting with him. And the rest said they wanted to get some good food for their family, which really surprised me. And we did show them how to prepare duck and that kind of stuff, too. They'd never hunted before. Now. We went out into the field, we went hunting. And I sat in a blind with these two young ladies, probably in their twenties, and watched the sun rise and watched Mallard start decoying in. And when the one lady finally shot and killed one, she started crying of joy. And you talk about a rush. I mean, that was. I could have shot 10 limits and not had that rush and watching her. And then I asked him, so what do you think? What do you think about hunting now? And they couldn't even describe it. It was that overwhelming to him that this. This thought of providing food as the primary reason just went out the window. It was that whole experience watching the sunrise, watching a muskrat swim across the pond. It was, you know, the cattails rattling in the wind. It was all these things. And then seeing that ultimate moment when them birds commit and that shotguns raised, I mean, it just was overwhelming to him. And that really whacked me at home and said, there's so much more to this, as you well know, that why are we doing this? That just answered the question to me. Those young ladies just ignited that at me.
- [21:38]
A
Sam, why have we not communicated what you just described?
- [21:42]
B
Why have we not? Yeah, you know, it's hard to say. And again, I think that's what I tried to cover in this. This book. And I hate to keep bringing it up, but.
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A
Yeah, tell me about this book. Pursuit of Wild Things is what you said, right?
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B
Yeah. And I literally, I. I thought about. I. I wrote a one about my game warden days before, and. And it was really fun. I wrote it and, you know, a lot of stories about some of my more interesting cases, catching bad guys and. And 20 years in wildlife law enforcement was. Was a heck of a story. And then I. I kind of got bored, if you will. I'm retired now. And I thought, what about another one? And I got up, I went to Alaska with my dad, and I watched him. We. We took. He. He was failing. He had cancer. And it was our last outing, and I wanted him to catch a fish real bad. And. And he. He just wanted to go out into the wilds. I think he wanted to go put bacon on himself and let a Grizz, get him. He just, he just wanted to be in the wilds. And that harvest of the animal, or fish in this case was no longer the goal. It was just being out there. And we all know these different stages of, you know, how we go through. We want to fill that bag limit and then pretty soon we want to use a muzzle loader. And then, you know, and then you only, you want trophies and then you go backwards and, and that's where my dad was. So that inspired me along the same lines as I went to a couple of auctions and I saw a guy's lifetime amounts get auctioned away. Some went to bars, some went to some ego driven idiot that wanted it in his cabin. And, and the story didn't go with that animal. And I said, you know, there's so much more to that than, than just that stuffed mount of an elk and we're losing that piece. And so that's what inspired me in this, this pursuit of wild things is to all of us as hunters need to tell the story. And the story isn't pulling the trigger. It's, it's part of it. Don't get me wrong, it's, it's that split second that we all know marks the end of that journey. But all the components and ingredients that were involved in that journey is the story. And so I don't think we do a good enough job doing that. Go into, you know, some of the major sporting stores and look at all these trophy mounts with a, a name and maybe a place that somebody doesn't have room to store anymore and, and shame on them. Where's the story about that? 390 point L. Where's the story about that, you know, 115 point coos whitetail. So that's what inspired me. I just, and, and it kind of gets to your question. Why can't we capture it? Well, we as hunters need to tell the story more. And I think by having these young ladies in this waterfowl weekend, we were able to tell the story and then we were able to have them live it. And so, and I know you, you've heard of this, three Rs, the retention recruits, the activation. I think that's a big part of it is, is whether you're retaining or reactivating or recruiting. What's the story that we're bringing to them. And it's not just the economic benefit or the conservation linkage of sport hunting. It's part of us. And I don't think we tell that story good enough.
- [25:40]
A
Do you Think that we've lost this sense of understanding that it's a part of us because of how urbanized we are today.
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B
Oh, I'm, I'm, I've been so, I guess just say worried about that because, you know, I've been fortunate all my life to live in small communities. I mean I live in a cabin 40 miles from town, off grid in the summer and, and now I live in a small town in Arizona and, and I think once in a while about, you know, I'm out fishing the other day and I look at my buddy and say, you know, right now somebody's in rush hour Traffic on the 405 in LA and here we are. And I think if you think about those huge municipalities, how, how can you take a population that size of LA county and keep hunting as a forefront of some major topic? Yeah, I mean that's a shot, it.
- [26:45]
A
Is a challenge, it is tough, man, you know, and that's why we exist. We, you know, we, we want to put message out there. And I think that, I think society is, has already shifted in the last five to 10 years. The first time, you know, social media started occurring, people were hook line and sinking sink of believing everything. I think people's meters getting better and better and better. I think that people are starting to look at things, understand things logically, think about things. I see it all the time, that's why I'm saying it. I see it all the time. I think that we have an uphill battle, there's no doubt about it. However, I think that there's ground being gained around all the fringes and I see it all the time. I see that hunting opportunities are increasing in places of the world that you'd never think hunting opportunities would increase. You know, you think about like in a place like Australia, the greenest of the green, they're getting hunting opportunities opened up left, right and center right now. And it's tied to introduce species and management and resources and human and food consumption. You know, things that society is like, oh, I understand that. Yeah, it's tough to get over the hurdle of oh, you guys kill things for pleasure. Like, how do you justify that?
- [28:14]
B
Yeah, it's a tough, it has to go, let's just say beyond the animal. And that's the part that again I think back at, at sitting in the blind with these two ladies that while in the beginning it was justified, you know, shooting a mallard out of the sky and at the end it was all the different little pieces of stimuli around that was, that was the experience. And so how do you convey that? And I think, as you well know, Robby, the segment of population that doesn't like or doesn't support hunting, and then there's a segment of the population that just doesn't hunt, but they don't, you know, not support it. They just don't hunt. And I think those people, again, might, you might take somebody like that. I don't want to hunt. But in or if you have a friend that doesn't want to hunt, invite him along just to sit there and, and experience that or go out with you. I, I was, I was listening to your podcast with Tony Shonin in the law enforcement segment. The, the, yeah, the poach.
- [29:36]
A
The poach pay program that they've done.
- [29:38]
B
Yeah. And, and I was listening that you.
- [29:42]
A
In the law enforcement arena for so long.
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B
Yeah.
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A
How crazy is that number? 96% go undetected.
- [29:51]
B
Oh, I, I, when you started, I'm going that there's no doubt in my mind. And it is. And let me finish this one thought before I forget it.
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A
The.
- [30:03]
B
So take somebody out that doesn't hunt so you can expose them to the other reasons why we hunt. Is the same thing in this law enforcement arena. When you're talking about trying to influence the county attorneys and prosecutors and judges about the importance of wildlife law and wildlife violations need to be stiffened is, you know, wardens and agencies need to take those people out. I literally would take a, you know, county attorney or deputy county attorney out on a patrol with me and they would see that it would be, you know, hours and hours, especially if you were working a case, how much time you put into that case to finally get the bad guy and then they plea bargain it out to nothing or the fine is, you know, reduced. And so what we found is the more that you inform and educate the people that are going to be hearing these cases, and I know we're shifting now, but I get into this too. Is, is, is, is pays dividends greatly in the end. And I think their movement to try to make, you know, more serious wildlife crimes a felony is spot on. But I'll guarantee you, once you open that door, it's plea bargain down to a misdemeanor. And they want to move these things through the system because they got, you know, other crimes, criminal crimes, and well.
- [31:39]
A
You heard them say, like the, the most effective law enforcement unit in the country. I think they said Washington State, Oregon. One of the two had a dedicated prosecuting team that all they did was was wildlife crime.
- [31:52]
B
Oh, it'd Be fantastic. Fantastic. In fact, I, I always thought too, I, I, I, I was, I taught the wildlife officers interview interrogation. I always loved how to get into people's heads and get them to tell you the truth. And, and I love that part. And when you went to trial and you saw, let's just say, less than a strong advocate on your side as a prosecutor. Oh, I'd have loved to been a prosecutor and tear into some of these guys. And, and I'll say one other thing too is we're kind of on this and it's, it's tied back to the, the poaching and the acceptance of hunting. And, and I've said this for a long time. We, and all the people that, that hunt need to say enough is enough. We're, we're not going to tolerate it anymore. And if, if, you know, Uncle Bob is, is shooting Martha's deer every year or, you know, you know, whatever cousin Johnny is going out spotlighting, do something about it. And because those kinds of people are further, you know, casting the spell on anti hunting because they're, they're, they're just slobs. Excuse me, but they are. And, and we just seem to tolerate it, you know, and I think in some of the communities that have grown up with that, as Grandpa did it and Uncle Bob did it, it's okay. We need to somehow or another change that mindset.
- [33:30]
A
It's almost like culturally accepted that Tony. And yeah, John said, yeah, I thought.
- [33:38]
B
It was a really interesting podcast and I was tickled to hear that the Wildlife Management Institute, and they're going to take it to the Sportsman's Caucus. And those are the kind of things that need to happen to at least starting to address some of it. It'll never go away. I was talking to an officer in Arizona. So I retired as an officer in 2004. So 21 years ago, I was talking to a young officer now, and I asked him about a family that was a notorious poaching family up in the White Mountains. And I had arrested several of the more obvious perpetrators in that family. I said, have they quieted down? And the answer was, heck no. Their grandkids are doing it too.
- [34:25]
A
Oh, man.
- [34:26]
B
So it's a whole, so it was just passed on, you know, and, and so I know that's a whole nother subject arena, but it's one that all of us hunters and it's our responsibility to, and I know you guys said when you go a field, you know, have a little notebook in your, in your honey bag and, and if you see something that's not right, it's probably not right, and follow through and let somebody know about it, I think is a major step.
- [34:57]
A
Well, Sam, it's germane to the conversation. You talked about your second book, Right, but you had a first book, which is stories about your law enforcement days in Arizona.
- [35:09]
B
Yeah. Yep.
- [35:10]
A
How many years were you a law enforcement guy?
- [35:13]
B
20. A little over 20. So you, when you, when you come there as well. In many states, they have a wildlife manager position. That is, you're given a geographical area that you're responsible for. Most of them are, are huge and, and, you know, thousand or hundreds of square miles. I mean, big territories. And you're the biologist, you're the information education, you're the pr, you're the GAIN department in that unit, and you're the state peace officer. You go to the academy and get certified as a law enforcement officer. And so you're the game warden for watercraft and hunting and fishing, as well as all other state laws. And, you know, it was funny, when I started out, I was strictly a biologist. I didn't want to be a gun toter. And a friend of mine said, you, you should really apply for these jobs. You'd find out that it's the greatest job on earth. And so I applied and I got it. And then I realized that with all the pieces of wildlife management and wildlife conservation, largely of which most is habitat management, law enforcement is another big peg of the stool. And if you don't have it, obviously there's impacts to that population as well as the perception of, of slob hunters. And so I really got into the law enforcement part of it. I, I looked at it as almost a game. I'm going to catch you. I am going to catch you. And it might not be today, but you will drop the ball at some point. I'm going to catch you. And so I, I would tell these stories that, you know, some of them are pretty funny, some of them are a little scary. And my kids would always say, dad, you got to write those down because you are decomposing at a rapid rate. So I did. I wrote it. I think that one I wrote, I don't know, three or four years ago. And yeah, it's stories of the past. And I've heard a lot of people say it's fun to read. It's some fun stories, stories in the.
- [37:22]
A
Past on outlaws that you engaged. Right. Remembering stories of the past in Arizona Game Ranger. Remembering the outlaws.
- [37:30]
B
That was it. That was, you know, I don't I don't quite understand this either, because I. I did a podcast with Steve Ranella on Meat Eater about that book, and he titled the podcast Soft Spot for Outlaws. And I thought maybe just a hook.
- [37:47]
A
It was maybe just a hook, right? It was just a way to get people in.
- [37:51]
B
I didn't want no soft spot. I wanted a sledgehammer.
- [37:55]
A
A sledgehammer to applause.
- [37:56]
B
We'll call.
- [37:57]
A
Well, let's title this podcast Sledgehammer to Applause.
- [38:01]
B
I like it. I like it.
- [38:03]
A
So tell me a little bit about some of these characters that you interacted with in Arizona. Is there. Give me one. Like, give me the. Let me. Give me one funny one.
- [38:13]
B
Oh, see? One funny one. Let me think here real quick. Oh. So I was working undercover in Yuma, Arizona. You want a game origin story, right? Is that. Yeah, I was working undercover on the dove hunt in Arizona.
- [38:33]
A
What does undercover mean in this scenario? Are you acting like a redneck dove hunter?
- [38:38]
B
Absolutely. Okay. Yeah. I got, you know, a little backpack with my badge and gun and stuff in it and radio and you. On. On opening day of dub season in Yuma, Arizona, you might have, you know, 50,000 dove hunters running around, most of which are from Southern California. And. And. And we. And I'm just going to say it. There's a. There's a tremendous group of slobs that show up. You know, they're littering, they're drinking, they're doing everything bad. So you'd park early in the morning. I mean, it's not even light yet. And. And you'd listen to the loudest group. You pull into an orange grove and just listen and go. I can hear music. I hear guys laughing. I'm going to go work my way into that group. And soon it starts getting light, and I'm. I'm infiltrated in with about five or six guys. And. And I. I start watching this one guy who's. Who's. He's going to violate. There's no doubt in my mind. And he drops a nighthawk, which is a protected species.
- [39:43]
A
And.
- [39:43]
B
And he starts, no, before.
- [39:45]
A
Before you get to this. Have you introduced yourself to this group? Because you're just hanging off of them. You're going to hunt with them, quote, unquote.
- [39:52]
B
Yeah, I'm probably 40 yards from the guy. And to some degree, you're kind of being stupid, too, because they could still put pellets in your face, you know, and you think, well, but I got to watch them. And so you. I was in, you know, playing.
- [40:07]
A
And in that comment, they think, you're just another hunter that's been given permission and you're just hanging off 50 yards off them kind of deal.
- [40:13]
B
Yeah. And I mean, you just, you have to experience it to see it. I had a buddy of mine tell me, don't bring your video camera on this because you'll get a broken lens. There's so many babies flying around. And, I mean, there's just hunters everywhere. And most of the places are open there. The farmers let them hunt. And so, yeah, you just get close enough where you can observe what's going on and, and you're looking for over limits and you're looking for littering and things like that. Anyway, so I, I worked this one guy for quite a while. I can't remember exactly. He probably shot, you know, 10 doves over the limit. He shot a nighthawk. He was. So at one point he yelled over to me like, hey, here comes some birds. Well, I would just act like I'm missing them. And then, you know, he'd, he'd laugh and go, I'll show you how to do it, you know, and then he'd. He'd shoot two more. I'm going, well, now I'm. I'm kind of entrapping the guy, you know, he's. He's doing more over his limit because I'm acting like I can't hit him. And then finally he shot a swallow, which is another protected species. And. And I said, okay, that's enough. I gotta put this guy. I gotta wrap him up. And so I walked back into the orange grove and, and put my badge on and my, my sidearm and put a cow. I had a cowboy hat, actually. My, my under cover rig was close by, and I got, you know, geared up a little bit. And then I came walking up to the guy, said, hey, how you doing today? Oh, good. I said, I need to chat with you a little bit about the number of birds you shot. He said, well, you know, I. I got my birds over here. And I said, what about over here? There's a nighthawk playing on the ground. He goes, yeah, well, that guy. And he pointed over there to where I was. He goes, the guy right over there, I don't know where he went. And he's the one that did it all, you know. And I just said, no, that guy was me, you know, and so we gotta, we gotta kind of put a stop to your behavior. So. That's a funny one. I laughed when he just was, you know, as serious as could be looking at me trying to pawn it off on somebody else.
- [42:26]
A
But think in that situation, are you by yourself? Because I know that law enforcement, there's a lot of, like, mental components to it. Talking a little seriously for a second because you're interacting in environments, and a little bit of PTSD sort of starts creeping into the guys that are in the job field that you're in because you're by yourself. You're going into environments with guns, you're going into environments with alcohol, typically, and you have no backup.
- [42:57]
B
So they've always said that to me. They've always said, you know, a game warden's job is. Is the most dangerous law enforcement. I won't dispute that. I mean, it. It certainly can be. It's. You got. You got to have your. Your radar on. And, And. And I think if you're working really, some bad guys, I mean, there was a. I. I know some. Some experience. There were some illegal reptile trafficking going on, and there's a story of that in the book that, you know, there were some bad people and you had to watch yourself. You. You wouldn't. There was no. No, let's just say fuzzy footing around. You had to be. Your radar had to be on high. When you're out patrolling and you're 100 miles from the nearest backup and checking hunters, your radar is still on. But the thing of it is, is 99% of those contacts are. Are good people. They're out there enjoying hunting and fishing or whatever they're doing, and you can kind of tell when you're coming into a situation that might be questionable. And the thing that all of us in the wildlife profession, law enforcement profession needed to focus on is it didn't need to happen right now. I mean, you. If you need to get backup, you know, get their license plate, get who they are, and then. And make sure you have the. The accommodations for backup that you need.
- [44:29]
A
Don't run into Yahoo stuff.
- [44:31]
B
Yeah, yeah. No, you just don't. And. And. And, you know, we used to have trainees when we were introducing new officers to the. To the job, and we would in kind of stress that a lot that none of this stuff is worth you not making it home, period. And, you know, I got in a few situations where you might end up on the ground. And I can remember actually telling a guy, I don't want to. This uniform shirt cost about 50 bucks. I don't want to wreck it. Let's just talk this out. I mean, so you. You have to use your noggin a little bit. And, you know, you. You're right, it is dangerous, but you gotta, you gotta have that radar on. And the, the only one that, and I know because I, I knew the guys when, when you let your guard down and you assume nothing bad's going to happen, that's when it's going to happen. And, and it's particularly when you're checking a bad guy that has a felony record or a felony warrant, and he's, he's already carrying a gun, he's already in trouble. And, and he doesn't want to go back to the tank. And so you better know going into it, what, what you're coming up against in terms of the potential, you know, felonious outlaw. I, I, I wouldn't go in there alone.
- [45:56]
A
Sam, tell me about that reptile bus. That seemed like a pretty big deal that, that was.
- [46:02]
B
There was several undercover officers working that case for a long, long time. And, and, and the one, and you probably, probably know there's a snake called a gaboon viper.
- [46:15]
A
Yeah.
- [46:16]
B
Yeah. Okay.
- [46:17]
A
So they, highly venomous.
- [46:20]
B
Yeah, they call beautiful snake.
- [46:22]
A
Absolutely beautiful snake.
- [46:23]
B
There's no beautiful snake to me in the world. It was a snake. And, and so they, they finally culminate this investigation and find out that this bad guy's selling these kaboon vipers. And this is in the book too. And long story short, they had several different residences. They were doing search warrants on it. They had an incident commander for each resident. And they called us all in for a briefing and sat down and says, lowry, you're incident commander on the King house. And, well, what's at the King house? And some of this stuff involved big game. There was a jaguar involved, there were some bighorn sheep involved. And, and then the reptiles. And all of a sudden the branch chief for law enforcement says that you're, you're going to the reptile shack. And, and I don't like reptiles. I just, I, and then the story came out that they are in possession of two gaboon vipers. And so we need to get those. So I had a herpetologist assigned to my search team and he was just in heaven. I mean, while we walked in this house, Robbie, it smelled like urea, like you just from all the mice they're feeding these snakes and stuff. And, and I mean, terrarium stacked to the ceiling. And, and anyway, we got the bad guy arrested. The bad guy, he's sitting there and we're, we're telling him we need to know where these things are. And he told us to go pound sand and some other expletives And I remember there was a Tucson police officer there, and he came up to me, he said, did that guy tell you where those snakes are yet? And I said, no, he's not budging. And let's just say he gave him a little persuasion, and it was kind of funny. And then all of a sudden, the guy. He said, they're behind the dresser in my bedroom. There's a hole in the wall. So we move the dresser, and here's this round hole in the wall with a piece of plywood. And you move it over. And I was, you know, obviously responsible for the officer safety. So I'm telling everybody, don't anybody move. You know, I don't want anybody touching anything until we get these snakes out of here, the bad ones. And so Cecil Schwab, he's passed away. He was a great guy, herpetologist. He opens up that. And he asked for the little slider, and he said, somebody give me a flashlight in a mirror. And he holds the mirror into the hole with a flashlight. And then all of a sudden, you hear him just go, oh, my God, there they are. And I get down and look, and I just see these. They are pretty. They're about that big around, and they're thick snakes.
- [49:17]
A
Yeah, big snakes are thick snakes.
- [49:19]
B
Thick, you know, Horrible snake. Anyway, it was. He goes, okay, they're in here. I can see them both. And so somebody hand me a mouse. Somebody grab a mouse. And we grab. We grabbed a mouse, and he's holding that thing by the tail, and he puts his hand in that hole, and he starts giggling, that mouse. And he's yelling at me to hold the flashlight in the mirror. And I'll be danged if those snakes just start one by one, you know, coming in. And. And then he had a pair of thongs, of course, and thonged them one each and. And put them in a box. And I think it's in the book. There's a picture of me carrying. I look a lot younger, but there's a picture of me carrying those two gaboon vipers out. And. And then we. We felt safe enough to. To finish the search and. And do whatever else we had to do. There was. There's even more to the story I'll have to tell you someday.
- [50:20]
A
That's amazing. That is amazing, man. Like, it's.
- [50:23]
B
That's cool.
- [50:24]
A
Like, look, I. You know, I love to have philosophical discussions with people about, you know, hunting and whatnot. And obviously, people like you that are so experienced, it's. It's just A treasure to be able to have those kinds of conversations. But the stories, right, that's what we're known for. Like hunters. We love stories. Talking about snakes. I actually have my grandfather's book right here and we're trying to figure out what we're doing with his stories. And the book, the, the story that I have open right now is called Mamba 1960.
- [50:55]
B
Wow.
- [50:57]
A
And it's also quite a funny story. It's about how my grandfather and his best mate were driving to go hunt an elephant and got caught in a big rainstorm. And the jeeps are open top Jeeps, so they pulled and pulled onto an anthill and got underneath the jeep and fell asleep essentially. And my grandfather felt the stings come up his leg, up his, up his body and lodge itself in his armpit. And he. And they're both under the vehicle at this time and he nudges Bob and goes, bob, I gotta. There's a snake on my body and his head is in my armpit. Like, you have to move the truck and you have to like slowly strip my body and get the snake out of here. And so they rolled the vehicle off the end till it's pouring with rain. Slowly taking off all the shirts, thinking there's a black mamba in his. In his shirt. And it turns out it's a frog. Anyway, Anyway, Sam Murray, I. I look forward to having you back on this podcast in the near future. I know that there's multiple stories and maybe we should just do that. Maybe we should just pick up your Stories of Outlaws book and say, let's pick another two or three stories and just talk through the details and let you reminisce about them.
- [52:25]
B
That's fine. That's fine. Anything I could do? Like I said, I enjoy this. I really applaud you for the effort you put forth in this organization that you've created and the message you're trying to convey. I just applaud the heck out of you, Robbie. It takes a lot of spunk to do that, man. Everything I've seen on your podcast are interesting and intriguing and I'd be happy to visit with you about, about any of this stuff. Concert. But I appreciate that, Bakefield.
- [52:55]
A
I appreciate that, Tim. Well, you've got two books out there. Tell people where they can find it. Can they find Pursuit of Wild Things and Stories of the Outlaws? Is that available?
- [53:03]
B
Yeah. You know, my, my daughter actually put an Instagram account together. I thought you got like four and.
- [53:10]
A
A half thousand followers, brother.
- [53:12]
B
That's what she Said I. She's. She. I owe it. I thought, you know, you said Instagram. I said, all I know is I got my wife an Instapot. I don't know what Instagram is. But so she. She put it on Instagram at Sam Lawry. L A W R Y. And there's a link in there for both of those. And. And then. Then she, of course, wants any of the revenue that comes in from selling those books and Hold BE At Ransom. Oh, it's good.
- [53:47]
A
She's your manager.
- [53:48]
B
She's your manager. And anyway. But that's what she has put together, and that's how you can access those things. Or Google. I think if you Google my name, it'll pop up too.
- [54:02]
A
Yeah, just Google Sam Lowry. L A W R Y Author. A bunch of things come up. Your Instagram comes up when you do that too.
- [54:11]
B
Yeah. I don't know. Does it?
- [54:14]
A
Yeah, I know I did it earlier.
- [54:18]
B
Oh, that was. That was. That was one other thing too. Just real quick. So on the Instagram, I want you to do this. There's things called Warden Wisdom Wednesday, and they're little short clips of tidbits for the average hunter to have a more positive outcome in the feld.
- [54:40]
A
I don't get Warden Wisdom.
- [54:43]
B
Warden Wisdom Wednesday.
- [54:46]
A
You see who does it? Is it yours?
- [54:48]
B
It's me. Yeah. Okay.
- [54:50]
A
It's under Sam Lowry. Okay.
- [54:53]
B
And one of the ones that you gotta watch is. There's. There's. I don't know, there's probably 20 of them. They're all tips about doing the right thing in the field so you don't end up getting a ticket. And there's one of them that's got some blue color bars or some kind of color bars. And anyway, it's the bloopers of those little clips. And you'll get a kick out of that. That's kind of fun.
- [55:20]
A
Let's have a look. So if you click off Wisdom Wednesday. So where are the bloopers? Which one are the bloopers? What blue ones did you say?
- [55:34]
B
Let me look real quick and see if I can actually. Students at the university about careers in wildlife. And a topic that came up.
- [55:43]
A
This is the Happy Warden Wisdom on Sam Lowry's Instagram. All right, I'll find it there must be.
- [55:50]
B
Okay, if you go down, you know, you see all the Warden Wisdom Wednesdays, then you'll see one with some color bars and. And now you don't need it, obviously. Do it now.
- [55:59]
A
Oh, I see that one. Let's have a look.
- [56:01]
B
That's the blue version. Here you go. Wisdom Wednesday. Eat a little food, give them a thanks. Most time we used to have boohoo, but got a few.
- [56:20]
A
Oh, that's classic. I love bloopers. I. I love bloopers. That's a perfect, perfect place to end this. Sam Lowry. Thank you so much, my man.
- [56:29]
B
Absolutely, Robbie. Have a great one. And do you ever need anything, holler at me.
- [56:33]
A
Will do, dude. Will do. You'll be back on for sure.
- [56:37]
B
All right. Bye.
- [56:37]
A
Bye.
- [56:37]
B
Have a great day.
- [56:39]
A
Well, that's it for today. Appreciate you listening, as always. Leave a review, share it with your friends, and most importantly, do what's right to convey the truth around hunting.