LEGACIES - MIKE BRADSHAW: Meet a game warden who 
recalls past run-ins with deer poachers ... Details ahead on 
Passport to Texas Legacies
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Passport to Texas Legacies from Texas Parks and Wildlife

Mike Bradshaw has served as a game warden for Texas 
Parks and Wildlife since 1973, working to protect wildlife 
in the brush country of south Texas, principally Dimmit 
County. He recounts the early days of his career 
apprehending poachers.
 
And, in those days, game wardens made lost of deer cases in 
South Texas. I can remember one season when Jim Pond and I 
caught sixty or sixty-five men apiece -- which is quite a load for 
a game warden to make. And, wardens all over south Texas 
were catching 'em like that. Oh, you'd have a little dry run in 
there were it seemed like you were snake bit, and then pretty 
soon, you could do no wrong again. You're out there catching 
them. And so, we were free and unfettered. We could just run 
all the hours we wanted. We had all the gas money we could 
ever run through that old automobile. We had fast cars and big 
engines. It was lots of fun. And the judges were available 
twenty-four hours a day. And when you'd catch one, you hauled 
him in, put him in jail, or you called that justice of the peace 
and got him in there. And it was pay or stay here in Dimmitt 
County. If they didn't have the money, well, they could make 
their call from the jail and they soon got the money. And, that's 
the way it was. :67

That's our show ... supported by the Conservation History 
Association of Texas ... visit them at texaslegacy.org ... for 
Texas Parks and Wildlife, I'm Cecilia Nasti