Operation Venado Macho: Part 1 of 2
When the spotlight lit up the biggest buck they had seen so far that night, Tommy Carroll hit the brakes. From the truck bed, Milton “Bubba” Plsek held the light steady while the “client” beside him assessed the deer through a rifle scope. BOOM! The deer dropped. Bubba smiled and said, “Let’s go get him.”
When they found the deer, a mature 11-point with a 24-inch spread, the client seemed disappointed.
Apparently, it had looked more impressive in the spotlight than it did on the ground. Tommy said, “You don’t have to pay me for that one if you’re not happy with it. He’s kind of pin-horned.”
The client said, “Hey, I’ll buy another one. We can do whatever…” Tommy cut him off, saying, “If he ain’t what you’re lookin’ for – I’m a man of my word.”
The client patted his pockets as they discussed what to do with the deer.
Then, dumbfounded, he said, “I forgot my hunting license! How am I gonna tag him?” The three men busted out laughing.
Bubba said, “I got one you can borrow!” More laughter, then a decision was made. The client used Bubba’s tag, paid $500 cash, and took the deer home.
As the client would later find out, everything about that Dec. 9, 1997, late night hunt on a 38,000acre ranch in Webb County was not as it seemed. Tommy and Bubba were Texas Game Wardens assigned to the Texas Parks and Wildlife’s covert law enforcement unit.
They were working a months-long undercover investigation, dubbed “Operation Venado Macho”, into a ring of hardcore outlaw hunters in deep South Texas. “Venado macho” is Spanish for “buck deer”.
Being a fulltime undercover game warden is tough and reconciling what you agreed to do when you first became a game warden with what you do as a covert operator can be difficult. It takes a person with a special skillset to pull it off.
Undercover wardens must be comfortable with being on their own and distancing themselves from other law enforcement officers. They have to be able to adapt to whatever comes their way in sometimes dangerous situations. They will see people do things that they personally find deplorable but will have to play along like everything is cool. Heck, they may even have to pretend that the people doing those things are their friends. Some of them do become friends, to some extent, but that can’t get in the way.
Tommy and Bubba were naturals. To establish themselves in any given covert operation, they would hang out in beer joints, cafes, feed stores, boat ramps, hunting camps or wherever, and make themselves appear to be, what game wardens call, “good for it”, meaning there’s a good chance they’d engage in whatever unlawful activity they might find profitable.
Though their primary job duty involved catching people violating fish and wildlife laws, small drug buys commonly provided the “in” to get things rolling.
As the lead investigator on Operation Venado Macho, Tommy had obtained permission from a Webb County landowner to use his family’s sprawling ranch to facilitate illegal hunts.
Apparently, the landowner was at his wits end from finding a headless deer every time he tried to figure out what all the hubbub was about beneath a wake of buzzards.
For Venado Macho, Tommy and Bubba operated under the guise of being ranch employees, and they were allowed to use a trailer house on the property as a base. Ostensibly, they were cowboys by day, but by night, they opened the gate and allowed access to whoever had the right amount of money, drugs, or combination of the two, to hunt trophy deer.
Venado Macho Part 2 (final) next week
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