Larry Case: West Virginia Game Warden

Few states east of the Mississippi are as rugged and wild as West Virginia. It’s the only state entirely within the Appalachian range and nearly four-fifths of its hills and hollers are blanketed by forest. As for its people, their character is probably best summed up by the motto on the West Virginia state seal: “Mountaineers are always free.”

““Taking a guy out of a blind turns out to be one of the most dangerous things you can do: it’s a guy that is armed that you can’t see.””

With all of that terrain, the state’s hunting and fishing opportunities range from B&C-worthy bucks to squirrel hunts with the kids, from classic grouse hunts to coyote with infrareds, and from Jurassic muskies to alpine brookies.

So, as a West Virginia game warden for 36 years, Larry Case certainly had his hands full.  

I had a chance to talk with Larry recently about some of the best fish and game the Mountain State has to offer as well as some of the worst offenses by both people and wildlife.

Larry also taught me a few things. I learned about the best breed of dogs for squirrel hunting that even George Washington and William Faulkner swore by, an old technique for hunting turkey like grouse, the wild plants that sustained the frontiersmen each spring, and the unusual history of big bucks that came to inhabit shot-out coalfields. 

This was one of my favorite interviews yet. Below are my questions in bold followed by his answers. 

Tell me about the life of a conservation officer in West Virginia and what the job entails. 

It’s a law enforcement job. A lot of people think that you band birds or do park maintenance. [DNR] Wildlife Resources is compiled of fish and game biologists and wildlife managers, and DNR Law Enforcement is law enforcement. 

DNR officers here have full police powers statewide in West Virginia. The idea is that you don’t concentrate on it, but you can arrest for anything if need be. When you’re out there, you see all kinds of things. 

What would you say is the breakdown of the action you see between pure wildlife law enforcement vs. the “other”? 

We deal with any and all forms of illegal hunting. Spotlighting used to be big when I was younger. We went through a big phase when there was a thing about baiting turkeys, and it’s still going on. It’s illegal to bait turkeys and bear, and it was pretty rampant. We did a lot of work on that. We did some real game warden work: in the woods, wearing camo, doing a lot of the of stuff that we thought real game wardens should be doing. They are still doing that out there. 

You can’t be spending a lot of time doing other things, although it does come up. Some of the bad apples that DNR deals with, such as people hunting out of season, are the same people that may be involved in drugs or breaking into houses. DNR officers run into a lot of drugs -- at least they do around here. 

Taking a guy out of a blind turns out to be one of the most dangerous things you can do: it’s a guy that is armed that you can’t see. 

Do you deal with mostly knuckleheads doing dumb things or organized serial offenders? 

Every once in a while there would be an operation on a bigger scale, usually with deer and big antlers. This fascination with antlers, really … it kind of makes people do stupid things. Sometimes three or four guys would get together, and they’re hitting every night somewhere, killing big bucks and cutting horns off. Eventually we get them. It usually takes a while -- longer than most hunters would like. 

Can you give a quick geography lesson of the different regions, terrain, and habitats of West Virginia? 

I’m in the southern part of the state -- the areas we call the coalfields -- and a lot of that is rougher than hell. It’s very steep; there’s some good hunting in places, but it’s rough. 

In southwest West Virginia, we have a unique thing: there are four counties that haven’t had a rifle deer season since probably the ‘70s. Many years ago, DNR -- and it was good move -- designated Wyoming, McDowell, Mingo, and Logan as bow-hunting only. Truthfully, it was thought of as a place that didn’t have game: rough, coalfields, shot out, and not much game. There weren’t any deer. From that designation and from genetics, the deer herd grew, and they started killing some monster bucks down there. Whoever thought that Wyoming County would attract people from out of state that would come in and lease vast couple of thousand acres to bow hunt?  

Further to the east in southeastern West Virginia, it opens up a bit, and we get farmland and river valleys like the Greenbrier. A little further up, around Pocahontas County, it’s much higher elevation, with a lot of it above 4,000 feet. It has a lot of red spruce and snowshoe hares and that kind of thing. It’s 80% national forest, and just a massive county that stretches 100 miles. Randolph County is next door to that, and it is the biggest county east of Mississippi.

To the north, in Morgantown and up into the northern panhandle, there is more population but there is some game -- a lot more turkeys up there. If you go east from there, you have beautiful open, flat, farm counties, and big rivers like around Harper’s Ferry.

What are some of the best hunting and fishing opportunities throughout the seasons in West Virginia? 

Starting in spring

March can be a dead; we have no hunting seasons of course. Trout is very popular in the spring, and we have put-and-take systems here in West Virginia. A lot of people love it; some people don’t. We stock a lot of trout waters in West Virginia, and we also have a lot of places that we don’t stock, like in Pocahontas County, where they have native brook trout high up. So, we’ve got options for both. 

We have a traditional plant you dig up in the spring and eat called ramps. They’re like a wild leek or wild onion, but they’re not. They’re very strong and aromatic, and we eat a lot of them in West Virginia. For the mountaineers, that was probably the first green. All winter, they lived on deer meat, hog meat, and biscuits, and didn’t have a lot of greens. Now it’s a big tradition in West Virginia with ramp festivals. 

That slides into spring gobbler season. Springtime, ramps, trout, and turkey: they all go together. You’ve been cooped up, and you can get out and scout and hear a turkey gobble. 

We also have varmint and coyote hunting. We have all opinions on coyote. If you ask 100 people about coyotes, you’ll get 100 different explanations. One myth that has persisted: if you go into barber shop, you’ll have people fight you if you say the DNR didn’t stock them. It’s one of those myths that doesn’t die. In every state east of the Mississippi, they’ve totally repopulated, but the DNR along with the insurance companies had a conspiracy to introduce them. 

Summer

In the summer, we have a lot of fishing. Floating the New River for smallmouth bass is very popular. The river is pretty rugged but it’s beautiful. 

Muskie fishing seems to have really picked up. I’m puzzled about it -- even in the winter it’s big. But muskie fishing isn’t the type of fishing that draws hundreds of people and the general public.

And in then in the deep summer, we have a lot of catfishing in some of the rivers and some of those big Army Corps lakes. 

Fall 

As you slide through summer, by September -- even before September -- everyone is getting tree stands out and getting trails cams set up. By late September, you can be back up in a tree bowhunting! 

Personally, I’m not a big died-in-the-wool deer hunter. I’m not obsessed about big horns; it’s generally a meat hunt for me. I’ll go to my hunting camp a couple of days after Christmas and try to put a doe or two in the freezer. 

I’m one of the few that hunts turkeys in the fall with a dog. It’s an old tradition that came from Virginia; only a couple of people in West Virginia do it. In the fall, you find a flock of turkey in big country like a national forest. It’s like a big grouse hunt: we use birddog derivatives, usually crosses between pointers and setters. The dogs go out ahead of you a couple hundred yards and find a flock of turkeys and bust them up and start barking. They’ll flush them and separate them, and then you’ll hide with the dog -- which is a whole other training mess! -- and then you call the turkeys up. 

Don’t they fly up in a tree when spooked? 

When they flush, they fly up and land in a tree, and then they'll call each other and walk around to get back together. They’re very gregarious. You’re calling them and they’re calling. But there’s only a few people that do this style of fall turkey hunting!

Late fall / early winter 

This is my time to squirrel hunt with dogs. I’m a big squirrel hunter. I was into as a kid and got back to it later in life. I love squirrel hunting with dogs! People who weren’t around it growing up look at you like you have two heads. 

The way it works is the dogs tree squirrels by sight and smell. They'll find a track of squirrel and find what tree they got up. They’ll start barking and won’t move until the hunter comes. Then the squirrel will pancake on a limb, and then there’s a big thing about finding the squirrel.  

We have this whole thing about bringing on new hunters and kids. They don’t have to be quiet. I ruined my son turkey hunting ha: “Sit on this tree and don’t move!” With squirrel hunting, kids can run and throw sticks and have fun. You can carry a gun or two, and don’t have to be loaded. It is very safe, and everyone likes to watch the dogs run and work. It’s just fun! Hunting should just be fun! You can really get some action, and for kids that’s important. Don’t just stick them up in a deer stand. 

I have so many questions … first, what time of year is best?

Time of year is important. It [the legal season] starts in September, and you can go out and start then, but to be honest, it’s much better once we get foliage off around the middle of November. You need to have the leaves off the tree or you’re never going to see him. 

What kind of dogs do you run? 

Historically, here in America, generally in the southeast, there are two breeds: One is a mountain cur. That breed to me has a fascinating history. It goes back to when people came across the Alleghenies. It’s its own breed -- it has many different offshoots -- and some people are fiercely loyal.  

The other one is called a feist. George Washington wrote about it; Faulkner wrote about it in his hunting stories. Most fiest dogs are not that big, and probably have more terrier in the original feist blood than in the curs. 

Do you use a rifle or a shotgun? 

The fun way is to have a rifle and shotgun. Once the dogs have treed, you see them way up there. Binoculars are really handy here, too. There’s a lot about using a .22 rifle if you pride yourself on marksmanship and want to. My dad was really big on that; he was an old rifleman. 

If you have another person -- and you don’t necessarily need a 12 gauge -- if they start moving, which sometimes they do, doing wants called “timbering” jumping from tree to tree because he has a tree in mind with a hole in it -- that’s when the guy with in shotgun comes in as backup. 

Winter 

How about black bear? 

We have a lot of black bear here. We have a lot of that hunt with hounds here, and that has gotten more popular. It’s almost like a coon hunt on a bigger scale.

The bear gun seasons comes in when the hound seasons comes in, which is basically the month of December. The biologists found out that the sows go to bed much earlier and moved the season back when they were trying to get more bears. They found out they have a much higher carrying capacity when they did that, and now they have way too many bear that they’re having an early season. 

In the ’80 and ‘90s, we would have times when you would have a mast failure -- little or no natural food like acorns -- and the bears would come out of the woodwork. They would be in town and in dumpsters and swimming pools. I dealt with bear a lot.

I’ve snared 'em, shot 'em, trapped 'em. There was a time when I killed a lot of bear because there was nothing else we could do. It didn’t hurt the population, that’s for sure! It gets to the point when it’s a public nuisance and public safety concern. 

Do you have grouse? 

We had a lot of grouse at one time, but they are just not here now. Once upon a time, I thought I was a grouse hunter. I had pointing dogs, and you could get many flushes a day. And then it was just exercise. 

You get all different opinions: too many predators, too many hawks, not cutting enough timber, no secondary growth habitat. I’m not sure anybody knows. We probably have less than a tenth of the grouse we had. 

It sounds like you have some great hunting and fishing traditions in West Virginia. What would you say is the most popular? 

If you have to pick something, deer is the most popular. There are a lot of bowhunters now, but traditionally rifle season puts the most boots on the ground. Back in the day, I had no idea what I was getting into during the rifle buck season! As an officer we were out there day and night! We took calls at our house and were required to have a listed phone number. You’d hang the shirt on the kitchen chair, and half an hour later, you’re out again -- that kind of thing ha!

Lastly, what are some of your favorite recipes?

I grew up eating squirrel. People who aren’t used to it give you a funny look, but it can be very good. I’m talking about gray squirrel and fox squirrels. Red squirrels -- what some people call the pine squirrel -- people don’t eat those; those smell like turpentine. 

Gray and fox are very dark and flavorful, but they do not taste like chicken. Kind of like bluegrass, you love it or hate it. But you gotta get it tender, unless they’re young. You parboil or give a quick shot in the pressure cooker, then cut up pieces and roll in whatever seasoning, and then fry them. It’s very good!

I like rabbit too, and eat a good bit of venison. The most important thing with any game is that if you take care of it really well and dress it well, and it’s handled right and cooked right -- even the people who don't like what they call that "gamey" taste are going to love it!