Moore Outdoors With Chester Moore 01/10/25--Chester talks about the problem of poaching and interviews wildlife criminal investigators.

• Chester Moore talks about the problem of poaching and interviews wildlife criminal investigators.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to More Outdoors on News Talk five sixty KLVI.
This is Chester Moore. Poaching has always been something that
I have wanted to raise awareness to because poaching is
the antithesis of legal hunting. It is killing animals without
regard for science, for management, for population levels. And over
the last few years, I have been on an ongoing

(00:22):
quest to raise awareness and an investigation of what I
call the teen poaching crisis. In the first half of
the show, we're going to talk about that crisis. In
the second half, we're going to have an interview with
a game warden that will blow your mind about a
poaching ring that was just busted. Dolphins are one of
America's most beloved animals, from flipper thrilling families on television

(00:45):
the nineteen sixties to modern day dolphin encounters the aquariums
and resorts. The love affair families have with dolphins is
a strong one. So when game wardens in Orange County,
Texas have found a dead dolphin impaled by a fishing arrow,
it sent shockwaves across national media outlets. This happened in
my hometown, so a couple of days after the incident,

(01:09):
I spoke with the local game board. He revealed the
type of fishing broadhead used in the incident was only
sold at one location in the region, a popular archery shop.
He said, quote that has really narrowed down our search.
We'll find out who did this, he said. What official
did not expect was that the perpetrators were two teenage

(01:33):
brothers who, while both fishing, came across a young dolphin
that had wandered into fresh water. So, instead of enjoying
seeing the beautiful protected marine mammal and reporting it was
in an unusual area, they killed it. This happened only
a few miles from my home in twenty fifteen and
opened my eyes to a problem few in our industry

(01:55):
have discussed. In my opinion, America has a tar keeen
poaching crisis that needs to be addressed in a major way,
and it's very, very dark. Less than a year later,
a team from Jefferson County, just one county over, was
charged for killing two whooping cranes. A judge ordered the

(02:17):
nineteen year old to pay twenty six thousand in restitution,
barred him from owning or possession of firearms or ammunition,
and prohibited him from hunting or fishing in the United States.
He was also sentenced to two hundred hours of community service.
Shortly after this made headlines, I asked a Galveston County

(02:38):
game warden if she had noticed any trends in game
and fish violations among teenagers. The answer blew me away quote, Yes,
they need to stop killing our eagles. Take for example,
a seventeen year old Harris County, Texas boy who was
charging connection with the shooting of a bald eagle near

(02:59):
White Oak. By you, it was one of a pair
that actively nested in the area for several years. A
bald eagle the symbol of the United States of America. Yes,
a bald eagle. The most heinous instance of eagle poaching
came from the Pacific Northwest Washington, Fish and Wildlife police

(03:19):
said a Sheriff's department officer found evidence of teens purposely
hunting for and poaching eagles. This is a quote from
an official press release. Officer Bolton and the deputy searched
the area for downed wildlife and soon discovered a relatively
fresh dough deer on the hillside near where the suspects

(03:42):
had parked four older deer carcasses In various stages of
decomposition were found in the same location. The officers learned
that one of the young men shot the dough the
night before by using a high powered spotlight. The animal
was then near the other carcasses in an effort to

(04:02):
bait in and shoot eagles. That's not an incident of
an impulsive act of game law violations. That's a calculated
effort that involves multiple poaching incidents to purposely kill eagles,
most likely for the black market trade and their claws
and feathers. Over the last eight years now, multiple other

(04:26):
incidents involving teens killing eagles have occurred across the country.
But it's not just eagles and dolphins. An eighteen year
old and a twenty three year old we're charged with capturing, harassing,
and harming three endangered key deer, the smallest subspecies of whitetail,
which is also a federally endangered species. According to a

(04:48):
report at Local ten dot com, the eighteen year old
said he lured three of them with food, restrained them,
and put them in the car in a plan to
take pictures with them. All three deer had to be
euthanized due to broken legs, An article at go hunt
dot com details two high school age males are guilty

(05:10):
of poaching ten mule deer in Macombe County, Montana.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
Quote.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
According to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, the deer were
killed with a shotgun using loads typically used for pheasants.
All of the deer were discovered on a two mile
stretch near Road five twenty eight in northern Macombe County.
Not to be outdone, four Pennsylvania teenagers went on a

(05:36):
white tail poaching spree that one wildlife official called, quote
one of the most disturbing incidents he's ever seen. Two
seventeen year olds and one boy age sixteen killed at
least thirty deer by spotlighting with the headlamp or their
car lights, exiting the vehicle in the deer rich area,

(05:58):
and opening fire. Officials said they probably wounded many more
than could be accounted for. Quote. It was almost like
a video game for them. They did it because they
were bored, said Clinton Deneker, a wildlife conservation officer with
the Pennsylvania Game Commission, and a press release issued after

(06:19):
the Grizzly incident, there is no telling how many deer
were killed or wounded, he said, adding that he can
account for at least thirty. A twenty twenty incident in
Wisconsin involved multiple teens over the course of a month,
killing forty white tails and one horse, all of them
were left to rot, and there were numerous other incidents

(06:42):
involving dozens of deer and other game killed in similar
sprees by teens all around the nation. This is not
an indictment of teens. It's not one of those diatribes
we often hear in our culture, like the kids these
days are rotten. I dedicate much of my life working
with teens. I believe in them and think there are

(07:03):
things about the current crop up teams that shows incredible
promise for our future. But this team poaching thing has
to be addressed, and it has to start with an admission. Most,
if not all, of these teens came from hunting families.
While we as hunters rightfully to note that poaching and
hunting are actually radically different practices, these kids are familiar

(07:27):
with game firearms, and in several instances we're engaged in
legal hunting activities when an opportunity to poach came along.
That means somewhere down the line, we have to for
those of us in the hunting community talk about this
issue and find ways to engage it. But we need

(07:47):
to ask some questions first. How much does parental influence
play into this? There is no question some of these
cases involve a long line of game law violations generationally.
Twenty nineteen case from Alaska as a prime example, as
a father and his seventeen year old son killed a
mother bear and her two babies and a den. What

(08:09):
they didn't realize was the bear had a GPS collar
on it and a camera to monitor their hibernation habits,
so they got busted in short order. A father who
raised his son or daughter to go to the level
of killing baby bears in a den shows authority figures
can play a large role influencing teen poaching, but it's

(08:30):
not the entire answer. Social media notoriety in our culture,
some of the most famous people are now famous for
only doing something famous or controversial. They haven't actually accomplished anything,
but those who are broken laws or done immoral things
and publicize them on social media are famous. Is there

(08:52):
a link between social media celebrity in teen poaching? A
twenty twenty Texas case was solved because as a team
that poached to deer that was well known living in
a neighborhood bragged about it on Facebook. Officials believe the
aforementioned Pennsylvania teen deer massacre was being communicated behind the

(09:14):
scenes through Snapchat. Something else to look at is the
power of suggestion. Social media and traditional outdoors media outlets
have unfortunately been a place for dark sentiment regarding wildlife.
While we can agree that much of the quote green
movement has little to do with actually protecting the environment,
some of the rhetoric rallying against it is quite dark

(09:38):
and is hauntingly similar to things we're seeing play out
in some of these team cases. A few years back,
I encountered several people who use social media and at
least one outdoors radio program to suggest shooting dolphins as
a cure for ailing flounder populations. And when we come back,
we'll talk more about this special investigation of poach. Welcome

(10:03):
back to More Outdoors on News Talk five sixty KLVII.
This is Chester Moore talking about an ugly issue in
the outdoors, poaching, and we've been talking about what I
call the teen poaching crisis, a phenomenon that I literally
am the only one that is addressed. I mean, we've
had stories about it here there in terms of isolated events,

(10:24):
but I'm linking these things together. And if you have
any feedback on what I'm calling the teen poaching crisis,
please message me at chesteratchestermore dot com. I would love
to hear from you. This was a quote from an
email I got when I responded to this on my
social media quote. They are always out there in the
past is flipping those flounders out of the water and

(10:46):
eating them, So we should start killing some of the dolphins.
End quote. Interestingly, this radio program that said this broadcasted
in the area where the teens shot the dolphin. This idea,
by the way, gained a large enough following that I
received multiple emails and social media messages about it. I

(11:09):
don't know how many times I've heard things like while
meat tastes like bald eagle or spotted owl. Those comments
aren't funny and could be damaging to the cause of
hunting uttered in front of a non hunter, but could
they also influence teams who want to impress adults. It's
something to ponder. Games are also something that needs looked at.

(11:31):
A few years ago, I received a hunting video game
to review in the mail. I'm not a gamer, and
since it was unsolicited, I did not review it. But
when I came across this team Poaching crisis, I studied
the game. The game had multiple opportunities to kill non
game and even endangered animals. Some hunting games are very ethical,

(11:52):
with bag limits, seasons, and other aspects of how true
hunters conduct themselves. I would even say most hunting games
I have seen are not set up in a way
that are negative toward animals. But there's another side to it.
There are some games based on survival that have nothing
to do with hunting and killing animals as part of it.

(12:12):
This includes non game protected and endangered animals, And it
makes me circle back to the quote from the warden
in the charge of the Pennsylvania case quote it was
almost like a video game for them. They did it
because they were bored end quote. Looking into the content
of first person shooter games is certainly something we should

(12:34):
do as families, and maybe for those of us who
work in the hunting industry start looking more seriously at it.
There is obviously a gap somewhere in wildlife education and
awareness of the penalties for these kinds of atrocities. Teens
have had their lives uprooted by the consequences of these
senseless actions. The great news is there are more teens

(12:55):
engaged in conservation than there are poaching, and it's time
we highlight them even more in media outlets like this one.
The Houston Safari Club Foundation education work with Houston and
area school districts is a shining example. Teens get to
see conservation centric hunting information and are inspired to give
back to our natural resources. Programs like Texas Brigades often

(13:19):
do a great job of instilling a conservation ethic. I
have personally been inspired to see how mentoring can help
teens through our Higher Calling Wildlife expeditions and mentoring program,
and one particular occurrence touches directly on this issue. I
took fourteen year old Nathan Childis on a quote green
hunt for Nubian ibex at a friend's ranch. Instead of

(13:41):
a standard rifle, he had a dart gun and the
mission was to dart the massive ibex billy that had
jump the fence and gotten into another pasture. After a
long afternoon of hunting, Nathan made a perfect shot. He
got to inoculate the Ibex against Disease post with some
cold photos with it, and helped move it to another pasture.

(14:01):
As the sun set on the Texas Hill Country that evening,
Nathan said something profound quote, when people teach you the
right way to hunt and you get to do things
like this, you want to do the right thing to
honor that. I will never poach animals because I respect
them too much and want to make sure kids ten
years from now can have opportunities like I just had

(14:26):
end quote. We can have more testimonies like this, like
Nathan's testimony if we invest more time and effort not
only into youth education but mentorship. But we also have
to dig into what is happening with teens in this
poaching crisis raging across America. Something is influencing teens and

(14:47):
not only damage wildlife populations and tarn us to reputation
of legal hunters, but it also damages their lives. As
an industry that I'm part of, we must confront it
is for the sake of the future of wildlife in
our youth. And there's a lot more to poaching, of course,
in this team poaching crisis, and I recently had the

(15:08):
opportunity to interview a game warden from New York on
one of the most shocking poaching incidents I've ever heard.
I recently came across a shocking poaching situation that law
enforcement officials made a case on in New York and
it is absolutely incredible and not in a good way.

(15:29):
The good part of it is the great work of
the law enforcement officials of the New York Department of
Environmental Conservation and joining us on the program, I have
Captain Joshua Verhague and we're going to talk about this
shocking case. How did wildlife officials first become aware of
this scheme of what was going on?

Speaker 2 (15:49):
So in the area, we have a couple of wildlife
photographers that were recording through their lenses deer in the area.
And in this part of New York State, the area
is closed completely for safety reasons to hunting. And with that,

(16:09):
as majority of your listeners probably know, if there's no hunting,
deer have the opportunity to grow big and abundant. So
even though it is in a suburban setting, there's still
enough small patches of woods that the deer have the
opportunity to reach some max potentials. So through that these

(16:33):
photographers were noticing some other people come into the area
as well as as time has progressed and more and
more with shed hunting and people become aware of shed
hunting online social media groups, through the wildlife photographers and
the shed hunting social media groups. Really we're putting it

(16:55):
out there that hey, look what I found, Look what
I'm seeing. And so between those two is the individual
started noticing gut piles as well as an other suspicious
activity and that was reported to us.

Speaker 1 (17:11):
All right, so there was you know, in the press
release mentioned this this online part of this. So these
people were kind of infiltrating online groups of photographers and
maybe shed hunters to get intel.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
Basically, yeah, correct, specifically they were part of a shed
hunting social media group. One of the individuals took it
to the next step to really analyze the size of
box by creating a fake wildlife photographer social media account

(17:52):
to get into that group and really see what was
out there. And so they commonsense was being done from
a remote setting, and what more of a better avenue
than wildlife photographers taking pictures of one hundred and sixty
one hundred and eighty inch deer, and you could say

(18:13):
at wherever they were looking at the size of these deer.
It had been going on for a while. Unfortunately, with
statute of limitations after the fact, we were limited on
the enforcement. We did have other violations going beyond the statute,
but that's just how the law works, and that's okay.

(18:34):
We need to work within the confines of the law,
and that's fine. So we had estimated that it was
going on for about five years, going back to about
twenty and eighteen twenty eighteen.

Speaker 1 (18:47):
Now, was it only in this particular area, or did
you get the idea that this might be going on
in other areas as well?

Speaker 2 (18:56):
Other areas through evidence found under search warrants, through social
media accounts, through cell phone accounts, and then physical search warrants,
we found evidence in other parts of New York State,
even as close to the confines of New York City. Yes,
there's there in New York City, as well as other

(19:19):
states along the Eastern Seaboard, and we did reach out
to those states for the evidence that we observed. They
did conduct and investigations but were unable to make a
case off of those.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
So you have the individuals that were mentioned in the
news release and the one that was posing as a
female wildlife photographer. So is this something that looks like
it had tentacles other places and maybe had been more elaborate.

Speaker 2 (19:46):
Yes, it was completely targeted.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
And we come back on More out there was we
hear more about this incredible case, the great law enforcement
work it took to solve it, and dig more into
the poaching crime. This is across America. Welcome back to
More Outdoors on News Talk five sixty klv I. This
is Chester Moore talking about poaching tonight and if you

(20:12):
have any feedback on this or you have any stories
you would like to share, email me at Chester at
Chestermore dot com, follow me at the Chestermore That is
d Chester Moore, Instagram, Hire Calling dot net. My blog goes.
Subscribe to that blog. A lot of exclusive stuff there
and of course catch me here every Friday sixty seven
pm Central Standard Time on news Talk five sixty klv

(20:33):
I with More Outdoors. Back to our conversation with the
game warden from New York.

Speaker 2 (20:38):
It was completely targeted chim. They knew the deer they
wanted and the group. In my nineteen years, this was
the most sophisticated sophisticated organization of poaching. You know, I
have seen groups of friends, family members get together and hey,

(20:59):
let's go jacket deer, and they were for a night
are season. What's interesting about this case is the use
of social media, which we have seen before, but how
the use of the wildlife photographers and the shed hunting
groups to specifically target bucks, to use their accounts as
well as text messaging threads and specifically target a buck. Hey,

(21:24):
this weekend, we're going to go shoot this and whatever
the name of the deer was, this one hundred and
sixty inch deer, this one hundred and eighty inch buck.
I'm not going to settle for this one hundred and
forty inch buck in the area. I want this one
the most efficient organized I should say for targeting specific deer.

(21:44):
It's not just hey, we're going to go put some
meat in the freezer. This is we're going to go
shoot this monster buck on this day because we know
it's in this area, because of this wildlife photographer, because
of this social media account puts it there two days ago,
and so I know, even in the middle of the
rot this deer is relatively close here. We're going to
find it, We're going to shoot it.

Speaker 1 (22:05):
Wow. Was there any evidence they used like geo tags
they could find in photos?

Speaker 2 (22:11):
No, we of course the technology allows different avenues to
detect that. I don't recall any avenues where they were
utilizing it. They through their shed hunting, which is the
off season. Through their shed hunting opportunities in the area,
they generally knew the patches of woods that these deer

(22:32):
were in.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
M H.

Speaker 2 (22:34):
So uh unforeseen on this case with that technology use.

Speaker 1 (22:40):
Now, in terms of this social media aspect of this,
was this mainly being done through like Facebook groups where
their Snapchat involved because I've heard of a poaching case
and I believe it was Ohio that had some Snapchat
elements in it.

Speaker 2 (22:53):
Yes, yeah, yeah, uh. Both were being used, the regular
textmester s thread being used. And just to mention another
part of the case which makes it interesting, this is
plain day, plain middle of the day on a weekend,
playing clothes, maybe a little bit of camel. But their

(23:15):
approach was to pose as hikers, wildlife photographers, normal people
just out enjoying a nice fall afternoon. They're not dressed
in full camo hiding in the bush and trying to
get away. With it middle of the day and again
suburban setting, so using all avenues possible. We did see

(23:40):
some potential for hiding smaller bows, compact bows.

Speaker 3 (23:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:45):
That was my next question about getting archery equipment in there.

Speaker 2 (23:48):
Yeah, yeah, and that was something I've never seen before.
As technology increases, you know, manufacturers are taking bows and
hunting equipment to the next level because you know, certainly
you want the most efficient, clean kill the animal. But
with that also comes some other complications. They were able

(24:09):
to fit a bow into a backpack and if you
were looking at them, you would never think that that
person had a bow in their backpack. They also, which
I've never seen before, I had walking sticks, and they
would hide the arrows within the walking sticks, again to
give home that additional level of just being out there

(24:32):
and enjoying it. So any individual and probably even law
enforcement would not think that they were up to poaching activities.

Speaker 1 (24:41):
Yeah, I didn't have the earmarks. And you know a
lot of times you think of you know, some guy
poaching area like that, coming out at night with the
twenty two magnum or something and you know, with a
little headlight, yeah or whatever. And that's kind of in
East Texas here what happens most of the time, or
but these guys obviously had, you know, a game plan.
And I'm a bow hunter myself, and when I first

(25:01):
heard archery equipment involved, I thought it might have been
somebody's really tiny crossbows. But when I noticed it mentioned
compact bows, I went and checked out an archery shop.
At the smallest bows they had, I'm like, you know,
you could fit that in a backpack, you know. So
that was an interesting aspect of this. Now in terms
of the individuals and maybe some of the other things

(25:21):
you looked at, did you get any sense that this
might have been part of the reason they did it,
was the thrill of going in and doing this and
particularly targeting certain bucks, or was there any kind of
like we're going to sell the racks off of these
or anything like that.

Speaker 2 (25:36):
Nothing revealed the seal of the reps during the physical
search warrants of the subject's residents. This was not the
first time they had shot a I wouldn't say world class,
but a very nice, mature dear that majority of public
would not see in their hunting lifetime.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
Huh.

Speaker 2 (26:01):
I think a lot of it was for self motivation,
self gain, ego driven type things to say that we
shot some big bucks. Nothing was shown for sale or
purchase in the investigation, and we dug pretty deep.

Speaker 1 (26:17):
It's a very interesting case. And you mentioned you like
getting search warrs and going in. There was a particular
deer in the press release at our riad where it
ran into someone's backyard.

Speaker 2 (26:26):
Again going back, yes and no. So being a suburban setting,
the majority of the areas that they're hunting are surrounded
by residential or apartment complex and so on. So the
one individual was observed walking what would have been behind
the one of the complainant's house in the backyard, but

(26:48):
it was owned by another entity. The deer after it
was shot, because we put the time piece together wobbling
as the complainant had told us, in what was on
the patch of woods, but not in physically owned by
the complainant, but would be what you would consider like, hey,
that's my backyard, Like what are you doing. Yes, the

(27:10):
individual and the dying deer as it was mortally wounded
and eventually deceased not too far from where the complainants
sought it would have been in a person's backyard.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
It's a very interesting case and The reason I want
to do this is just a sort of raise awareness
to how far poachers will go and how maybe they
can use modern technology to do things. And people who
maybe you know have private herds of animals or property,
or you know, have animals and urban settings suburban settings
around their homes. So how did this make you look

(27:46):
as a department more at the social media aspect of
how people can you know, scout out poaching opportunities?

Speaker 2 (27:55):
Absolutely?

Speaker 3 (27:56):
Uh huh.

Speaker 2 (27:56):
This level of a fake out is certainly something that
we need to and when I say we, it's not
just New York State, but the natural resource law enforcement
across the country and perhaps the world need to look
at the organization level of it because it's there and

(28:17):
it's present.

Speaker 1 (28:18):
What should the public in terms of posting photos of wildlife?
Is there? Should we be concerned about, you know, giving
two specific information of locations of wildlife and things like
that to be photographed.

Speaker 2 (28:31):
That's a tough question, you know, if the public is
out there taking photo listen, who doesn't love seeing If
you love the others, you love seeing see in pictures,
you love seeing different wildlife that are native to your state,
or whatever the scenario be. What I think that would

(28:52):
be the pitch to the public is the obscure scenarios
that just doesn't make sense. You know, if you're common
to this area and you're the wildlife photographer and you've
never seen somebody hiking of this nature for you know,
the last ten years you've been in there or whatever
it is, see something, say something that you know Post

(29:13):
nine to eleven is a common thing, even in the
Wildlife tract. If it's uncommon, please call your local agency
and specific to New York. You know, we get complaints
all the time. We get hey, I saw this, and
we love it. If it's at the local diner, coffee shop,
gas station. Communication is the only way because you know,

(29:34):
majority of your natural resource law enforcement, your game boarder
is out there. Were green for a reason to hide,
but believe it or not, where we are not out
there twenty four to seven and we do need the
public's help, and we appreciate it the public's help, and
hopefully it's a give back to those people that are
doing it the right way.

Speaker 1 (29:56):
When we come back on more outdoor, if we're gonna
shift tears and go into a highly costive aspect of
the great outdoors, welcome back to more outdoors. On Newstar
five sixty klv I kind of went into the dark
side with poaching tonight and raising awareness of that issue.
We're gonna end with something fun talking to Captain Brian

(30:16):
Brera about tarp and fishing on the Texas Coast. Fish,
you know, our reds our specs, our flounder. You know,
flounder will even go into the gulfer in the winter,
but they're still holdover fish. Those are fish that are
gonna be there three sixty five at some level in
our base systems and around the jetties and things. But
these tarp and mysterious. As a matter of fact, there's

(30:37):
not even that much information about these populations in the
part of the Gulf of Mexico and the Western Gulf
we're in compared to other species. So let's just kind
of dial it back a little bit and down in
this southern the very southern tier of the Texas Coast.
You mentioned that these fish will come in, So do
you have any fish that are there year around about

(30:58):
maybe juveniles and that kind.

Speaker 3 (30:59):
Of stuff, Yes, sir, Yes, the sister we've got a
pretty good juvenile population population of tarpin sometimes my guys
will come with a fly rod and catch and he
thinks he's got a bait fish on it. It's a
two pound tarpin and.

Speaker 1 (31:12):
Nothing wrong with that, man, I'm down with that.

Speaker 3 (31:14):
Well with that, they're awesome. They're still jumping around and
out and around, you know, and sometimes we'll catch them
thirty pounds. You know. Once they get above that thirty
to forty pound raids are usually I think that they
can keep up with the bigger ones and they start
to migrate out with them. Once they get to be
that size, I feel like these smaller ones will lag
behind and they'll get picked off by something big because

(31:36):
it's a big ocean out there, and there's bigger fish
than tarpin out there, and these little fifteen pounders that
try to keep up with these one hundred pounders just
wouldn't be able to do it. So they like to
find places to stage along along their migration and they'll
sit there. You know, lots of places south of us
in Mexico a couple of little mini fisheries, and you
know north of us here too, you'll see some juvenile

(31:57):
tarpin and some backwaters and stuff that'll ha until hang
for a year or two even longer, until they get
that size that they can keep up with those big ones.
Like I said, we have a good juvenile population here,
so tarp and that'll hang out year round. Some months
are harder than others to find them, but they're always there.

Speaker 1 (32:14):
Yeah, So when does it kind of start getting good.
Maybe you're catching the juveniles and a few of those
little bit bigger fish like those fifty sixty eighty pounders
might show up. Is that is that pretty much when
it starts warming up by June July.

Speaker 3 (32:24):
As soon as it starts as soon as it starts
warming up and the water temperature hits about seventy to
seventy five degrees, those tarp and start migrating north. They
start coming up here to hang out. And then they'll
be passing through like we're talking, you know, migratory fish. Yeah,
probably end of May, beginning of June, you know, and

(32:46):
they'll start pushing through, and then as it gets heavier,
they'll push through it and they'll come back down. From
what I've read and what I have seen, they'll come
back down and pass through again, you know. And that's
when you get a lot of them very big ones
that are hugging the shores and stuff like that, very
big ones that are here at the end of the season.

Speaker 1 (33:06):
You know, the silver king is definitely, you know, it's
hard to say what's the most prestigious fish in the world,
but definitely for fish you're gonna find anywhere near Inland,
the tarpin has to be, you know, right there at
the top of the list. I don't know a single
angler on the planet that does not want to catch
a tarpin if they know tarpin exists. And for Texas anglers,

(33:28):
I mean, we have a tarpain alley up here on
the upper coast by me, about forty fifty miles from me,
down between High Island and San Luis, passed that area.
There's some good fishing at different places around Port O'Connor,
different pockets of tarpin. But you mentioned something earlier like
you could probably catch in July, late July through September tarpin,

(33:49):
particularly on any day out of High Island. But literally
in that ninety day window you might have fifteen days
you could fish out there. So I'm sure you guys,
like everybody in Texas kind of has to work around
the weather on this stuff. Yep.

Speaker 3 (34:04):
We work around the weather. The weather is the most
important thing. I always say, the fish are out there.
There's a lot more tarping than we think. We just
can't get to them. If I get the good weather,
I'm gonna tell my clients that I feel, you know,
very confident. I'm going to get us the shots at them.
I'm going to find the fish. Whether they're going to
eat for us or not. That's that's a whole nother story.
Because there they're picky some of guns, you know stuff.

(34:27):
We can always find them. There's a lot of them there.
We just need the weather. We need the opportunities is
what we really need.

Speaker 1 (34:33):
So let's talk about once you got the weather, you know,
the migrations kicking in. Your hearing some reports of fish
moving over, maybe seeing them on some of your snook
or trout charters. You're seeing some you know, some tarping
out there moving around. What does a Brian Barrera tarp
and fishing day look like for your clients? I mean,
what are you doing? Are you going out there? You
sit fishing, you drift and live bait. What's going on? Yep?

Speaker 3 (34:54):
I like to start off, you know, when when we
got low light conditions, and I really like to try
to syite cast those roles fish early. We'll either hang
out at the Jed's or hang out a couple of
spots I know where the tarpain like to get up
and get active in the morning and show themselves and
we'll try to sitecast them with artificials, usually early the
first two hours of the day two and a half

(35:15):
hours day, once the sun gets up a little bit,
I'll go and you know, throw a net, get a
couple of baits, whether we're doing live bay or dead
bait that day, wherever they've been eating for me lately,
and we'll start cruising around and looking for the big ones.
And once they get to an area where I know
they are, you know, I'll set out, usually one live
bait or something or one dead bait something hanging off

(35:36):
the back, and I'll have my clients up in the
front trying to sitecast rollers or trying to blind cast
in the pockets in certain areas where we know they
hang out, and I'll see them on my GPS. You know,
they're not always rolling on the top, but I see
them on the GPS. I have the side imaging and
I'll see them. You know, it's like out to the left,
maybe twenty five yards on the GPS, they'll say it's

(35:58):
actually feet, so it'll say fifty sixty feet. I'll say, okay,
I just saw one pass by on the GPS about
fifty feet to the left through a couple of blackcasts
in that area. You hook up. Sometimes they hook up,
sometimes they don't. You know, lots of times that fish
that I see on the GPS is the first fish
of like a twenty fish school, you know, so they
cast right in there and hook up real quick. They're
not necessarily hooking the one that I saw on the GPS,

(36:20):
but they're hooking you know, fish that are there.

Speaker 1 (36:23):
Yeah, you missed something key about tarpan earlier, and I
experienced this in Florida back in April. You know, you
think you said you had seven fish and and you
had like half of that that you actually brought to
the boat. That's probably a pretty good ratio. Tarpin and
notorious for having a bony mouth and being difficult to hook,
aren't they Yep?

Speaker 3 (36:44):
Definitely definitely, especially the small ones, twenty five pound fish,
and we landed two of them. I'd be pretty happy,
you know, because even those small ones jump out those
really big ones. A lot of times you can get
a hook in them, you know, And it depends also
because it's a few Two of those were on artificial
lou Da baitbuster and good sharp hooks. You know, I
sharpened the hooks oven keep those good for them. But

(37:06):
two of them are on circle hooks. You know, if
you can get the big ones on the circle hooks
and they run away from you, you've got a good
chance of hooking them because that circle will get them
right on the top of the the you know, when
they pull it away. But if they eat it coming
at you and jump at you, you've got less of
a hook up ratio. Just because of the way that
circle hook is named.

Speaker 1 (37:23):
We're going to take him in to check in with
our partners at Texas Fishing Game. I am the editor
in chief of Texas Fishing Game, the oldest and largest
outdoors magazine in Texas his sister website phishgame dot com.
Between these two award winning outlets, we cover everything outdoors
in Texas and beyond. While we provide you with plenty

(37:44):
of hook and bullet how to information, we have committed
our resources to bring you the most comprehensive coverage of wildlife,
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this award winning coverage by subscribing to Texas Fishing Games
Print Edition six issues a year by calling eight hundred
seven five four are going online to fishgame dot com.

(38:07):
You can also sign up for three times per week
e newsletters. They current on everything affecting fishing, hunting, shooting, camping,
and enjoying the glorious great outdoors. On things like the
bait Buster. You do any kind of modifications with your hooks?
Are you doing extra sharpening or anything in particular that
might help with hook set? Are you just going that
comes right out of the factory.

Speaker 3 (38:28):
I used to sharpen. I used to sharpen the doa
bait Buster hooks right out of the of the pack
at sharpen them. I fish a lot with Mark Nichols,
the creator yep, and he would always remind me sharpen
your hooks, sharpen your hooks. And you did that. But
now RECENTLYDA came out with a new bait Buster, a
new hook they uh, you know, a new weight to

(38:50):
super heavy one, especially good for tarpin and casting. Further
distances for them, but it's got to uh. I think
it's like a black nickel hook. I'm not exactly sure
they'll quote me on it, but it's a lot sharper
of a It doesn't need to be sharpened at all.
That thing is ready to go. And my numbers on
tarp and have jumped up big time as far as
the hookup ratio since using that new style of hooks

(39:12):
that they went to, So I don't sharpen anymore.

Speaker 1 (39:15):
That's interesting, you know. I have to ask those questions
because you got the guys out there that you know,
any any little small detail like that can help that person.

Speaker 3 (39:22):
Sharpen. Yeah, sharpen the hooks when you're throwing anything for
a tarp and if it doesn't if you poke it
in your fingernail and it doesn't just stick into your
fingernail you know pretty quickly and to stay there, then
you need to sharpen it if you're gonna tarp and fish.
Unless you got the fairy bomb hook set, you know, yeah,
we got you. Yeah, yeah, But and I tell them,

(39:44):
like set the hook like you're setting your on your
bath that do it like three times, and if you
survive the first jump, or two. We might be onto
something you know.

Speaker 1 (39:53):
I hope you enjoyed the program tonight and connect with
me at the Chester. More on Instagram, Higher Calling Wildlife
on face Facebook, Higher Calling dot Net the blog every
month in Texas Fishing Game Magazine. God bless and have
a great outdoors weekend.