Great day game warden

By Tim Mulherin

Sun contributor

Every February, when winter is getting old, I look forward with childlike anticipation to the trout opener in late April. Then, while I stand in a pristine northern Michigan river casting for browns, rainbows, and brookies, inevitably one of my fishing buddies will make an unflattering remark about the “fish cops”—Department of Natural Resources (DNR) conservation officers. But to an angler like me who’s lived in the big city—with its polluted and neglected bodies of water—most of my adult life, I have a much different view. I don’t take for granted the critical work of Michigan’s DNR enforcement officers in protecting these precious resources.

Recently, I met one of the DNR’s finest: Rich Stowe, 57, a former Grand Traverse County Sheriff’s Office deputy. Stowe has been with the DNR since 2002.

While researching a book on the impact of the pandemic, climate change, and tourism on northwest lower Michigan, I had the opportunity to ride along with Officer Stowe in late September. As I would see for myself, “Its’s always a great day to be a game warden,” as he’s fond of saying.

When I arrive at the DNR Customer Service Center/Field Office on M-37 on the southside of Traverse City, I mention my surprise at the amazing number of hawks I saw along the way: red-tailed, red-shouldered, and broad-winged. “It’s migration season,” Stowe responds, smiling. “I love birds of prey, too.” I tell him about sighting my first northern harriers a week earlier. “They’re called marsh hawks around here,” he explains. My master class in the great northern Michigan outdoors is underway.

We depart in his forest-green Chevy Silverado pickup truck, with its distinct black grille guard, searchlights on each side of the windshield, and cages in the bed for varmints he may have to remove. A large laptop dominates the dashboard; a set of binoculars is within easy reach. The cab is snug but neat, every square inch of space optimized. Behind the front console in an upright gun rack rest a 12-gauge shotgun and police-issue automatic rifle. Although certainly law enforcement weapons, they’re typically used for putting down mortally injured or diseased animals, including deer, black bears, and elk.

A significant part of his work is responding to citizen complaints. First thing, he investigates one involving “dispersed camping”—backpack or car camping. We turn onto a two-track, driving through narrow corridors of underbrush, a nails-on-chalkboard sensation for me; no bother for him.

We come across a campsite in a clearing along the Platte River. Next to a kayak/canoe launch is a collapsed two-person tent near remnants of a large campfire. Empty food packages and cans of bug repellant litter the area. Stowe finds a camping permit stuck in between two lower branches of a sugar maple. In the address information section, scrawled in bright green highlighter ink, it reads, “My (bleeping) car.”

“If I should make contact with this individual, I expect it will be the same attitude as this,” says Stowe, knowingly.

About an eighth of a mile further into the woods appears a parked U-Haul truck and a road-weary Chrysler van. Four children, elementary to middle-school ages, bolt from the van. Their mother, who is very pregnant, politely greets Stowe as he introduces himself. She’s wearing a pink maxi dress, a maroon beanie, pink socks, and sandals, not the everyday outdoorswoman attire. I watch from the cab. The conversation appears friendly enough. Several dogs bark relentlessly. He gives her his business card, returns to the truck, and we leave.

“We see a lot of that—people getting off the grid for a variety of reasons,” he explains. I’m familiar with homeless people in cities, but quite unaccustomed to seeing them in such a setting like the Platte River. “There are a lot of weird things happening anymore,” he comments. Such as an increasing homeless population in the woods of northern Michigan.

“Those kids should be in school,” I observe.

“Yes. Among other things,” he says as we drive away. “Makes you want to go home and hug your grandkids.”

Stowe and his six fellow conservation officers working in District 4, Area I – Leelanau, Grand Traverse, Benzie, and Wexford counties—protect 2,383 square miles of land. Add the Manitou Islands, Fox Islands, and Power Island, and their responsibility expands to 4,568 square miles. This includes 159 inland lakes and 257 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline.

The salmon run has begun. We visit the Platte River weir near Honor. As we hike along a riverside path, Stowe characterizes salmon fishing on the Platte and Betsie rivers as “a spectacle.” But not today, midweek and early in the run. A smattering of fishermen cast hopefully, patiently.

Inside the truck, our conversation ranges widely. Stowe shares that someone recently reported a “black panther” sighting. As it turns out, it was a fisher, a member of the weasel family. “Mystery solved.” I broach the subject of marine rescues. He has never recovered a drowning victim wearing a personal flotation device (PFD), other than once: an elderly man wearing a worn-out PFD.

Although tempted, I refrain from bringing up bigfoot. I do, however, inquire about the eastern massasauga rattlesnake. I mention a guy at Good Harbor Bay in July who claimed he just saw a rattler on the beach. Stowe says the nonvenomous eastern hognose snake is often mistaken for the massasauga. “But you never know,” he says, encouraging my imagination.

With the onset of the pandemic, “shots fired” complaints became more common for the DNR in District 4. In Stowe’s former assignment in rural northeast lower Michigan, “that never happened.” Locals are used to hearing gunshots from hunting, target practice, or farmers eliminating pests. Pandemic migrants living Up North in the country sometimes reactively associate gunshots with criminal activities, a phenomenon Stowe finds curious.

We stop at the Homestead Dam on the Betsie River. King salmon hurtle out of the water, going airborne as they try to leap up the dam. Some succeed. An elderly couple leans against the railing, marveling at the piscatorial power on display. Stowe chats with them. A friendly educator, he tells them about the river, the dam, the fish, the run. Then we take the well-worn path along the river’s edge.

Minutes later, we happen upon four Indiana conservation officers here for some salmon fishing. Stowe confabs with them collegially for about 15 minutes. He mentions that things can sometimes get a bit “western” during the run, and they all laugh knowingly. Then he checks fishing licenses on three different groups of fishers: from Illinois, Georgia, and Washington. “Did you notice that we didn’t talk to one fisherman from the state of Michigan?” The day before, he spoke with a fly fisherman who flew in from Germany specifically to salmon fish on the Betsie. Sadly, this growing out-of-state pressure has dissuaded many locals from salmon fishing here, he says.

We watch as a fly fisherman battles a king charging upriver. “Can you imagine what that would be like if there are 500 or more fishermen standing side by side right here when a fish like that gets hooked and makes a run?” he suggests. “That will happen on Saturday.” Western indeed.

Back at the DNR field office, Stowe says in parting that whenever he’s around younger conservation officers, especially during training classes he conducts such as trapping enforcement, he tells them—and I’m ready for it—“It’s always a great day to be a game warden.” It was certainly a great day to be with this game warden, too.

Tim Mulherin is the author of “Sand, Stars, Wind, & Water: Field Notes from Up North.”