Footprints in the Sand

Posted signs, such as this one on the Kenedy Ranch, go largely ignored by poachers.

It began with footprints in the sand in a place where they shouldn’t have been - some two miles in from the south shoreline of Baffin Bay on the 200,000-acre portion of the historic Kenedy Ranch owned by the John G. Kenedy Jr. Charitable Trust.  The Kenedy Trust is a veritable wildlife paradise where hunting hasn’t been allowed for decades.  It’s a place where white-tailed deer, javelina, turkey and other native species of wildlife are given the opportunity to die by natural selection.  Trophy white-tailed bucks abound there, and as one game warden who worked the area for many years put it, “they’re as tame as milk cows.”   Indeed, many of those trophy deer have never seen a human, much less been shot at, making them easy pickings for those inclined to do what they ought not to.

There have always been those types – poachers, thieves, outlaws, whatever you want to call them – willing to take a shot at getting caught to poach trophy deer.  Many times, they’re the guys whose penchant for poaching is accompanied by a compulsion to brag about their exploits, and their tales grow taller each time they’re told.  Heck, if you listen to some of them, you’d think they were Rambo and Robin Hood rolled into one.   

Most law-abiding, conservation-minded outdoor enthusiasts would never know of any of those exploits, save for the growing number of podcasts where the poachers/thieves/outlaws are given a platform to tell their stories while the podcast host, with a wink and a nod about how it was “different back then,” giggles along with and glorifies the stories told.  Whether those podcast hosts are aware of it or not (how could they not be?), they are in effect providing a masterclass on how to trespass onto property and kill trophy deer, complete with all the intricacies of cutting off the trophy head and leaving the rest for the coyotes.               

But back to those footprints.  It was around 9 a.m. on February 6, 1998, when Game Warden Matt Robinson first laid eyes on them.  Matt and six other wardens, a seasoned group that included Mike Fain, Sam Ilse, Jason McFall, Hector Garza, Jeff Parrish and Norman Anthony, along with long time Kenedy Ranch security man Joe Stiles, were cutting sign (looking for footprints) along a section of Paistle Rd., a private caliche road that runs from Highway 77 south of Sarita through the Kenedy Ranch all the way to the Laguna Madre.

After confirming that the prints hadn’t come from one of the other wardens, Matt got on his radio and, using GPS coordinates, called everyone over to his location.  After a brief consultation, the collective thought on the tracks was that they belonged to a backpack-hunter and were probably at least a day old. A man can cover a lot of ground in a day.  

LEFT: Wardens cutting sign, or tracking, on the Kenedy Ranch. RIGHT: Wardens knew they were getting closer to Beaty as his boot prints became more defined.

The wardens formulated a plan to make up for lost time in which a couple of trackers would stay on verified tracks while others would leapfrog up and circle around to see if tracks could be located further along.  Joe Stiles, who knew the lay of the land on the Kenedy better than anyone, stayed with his truck to shuttle the wardens where they needed to be. 

The men were tracking through rolling coastal plains dotted with sand dunes, scrub brush, salt flats and thick oak motts, and their speed varied with the terrain.  Tracking slowed considerably in the oak motts, where footprints were indiscernible and less reliable indicators of direction of travel had to be considered; a turned over leaf here or a scuff mark there.  There were times when the trail was lost completely.  In fact, the wardens almost called it quits a couple of times, but the team worked well together and time after time managed to find enough sign to keep them going.

As sunset neared, the backpacker’s tracks were getting more distinct.  Wardens could make out the brand name from the sole of the boot in the sand. By this time, the wardens had been following the trail for about 18 miles. They were close.  They followed the tracks into some thicker brush before coming out on some sand dunes that were covered with small oaks.  As Matt, Mike, Sam, Jason and Jeff were huddled up over the most recent sign, Jeff looked up, pointed and said, “There’s a face!”  Mike yelled, “Get your hands up!”  Matt took off running.  

The following is the account of what happened next as told by the backpacker, the self-anointed “Prince of Poachers,” Charles Beaty, as released on the May 2, 2025, episode of the Western Territory podcast titled The Prince of Poachers:    

“They (the wardens) came over a hill at my back.  They came up behind me.  And I heard ‘em – and one of ‘em just couldn’t contain himself - he laid eyes on me, and he goes, “There he is!  Right there!” he just, he screamed out! I turned around and came up to one knee and looked, and they were running.  There was a wall of eight men running at me at 18 yards and closing fast, drawing guns - guns drawn, - ran right up to me – “get ‘em higher!”  I’m on my knees with my hands up; stuck five pistols to my head and stuffed my face down on the ground and handcuffed me and left me laying there for a while and all their voices, you know, I could listen to everything they were saying …”  

And this is Game Warden Matt Robinson’s account of what really happened:

“I hadn’t seen him (the backpacker), but I took off running in the direction Jeff had pointed.  I had taken about ten steps before I saw him sitting and eating a candy bar.  He saw me about the same time and stood up as if he wanted to run, but didn’t know which way to go. I was shouting for him not to move as I was running toward him.  I had noticed that Jeff and Mike had spread out to the left and right and were running to surround him.  The guy never ran, and when I got to him, I put him on the ground and ended up on his back with him face down.  Jason arrived almost immediately out of nowhere, knocked me off him and had him handcuffed in no time flat.” 

There were no guns drawn and pointed at his head.  After he was handcuffed, Beaty was stood up and patted down for weapons.  He was then placed under arrest and taken to the Kenedy County Courthouse, where he was taken before a judge and charged with Hunting Without the Consent of the Landowner and Hunting Deer in a Closed Season.  He was placed in jail, and he bonded out later that evening.   

LEFT: Game wardens Robinson and McFall check Charles Beaty for weapons following an 18-mile trail. RIGHT: Game wardens handcuff Charles Beaty on the Kenedy Ranch after a day-long pursuit.

When all was said and done, Beaty got off pretty light for a guy who, on the August 3, 2021 episode of “Hunters Advantage Podcast”, boasted of taking part in the poaching of 116 trophy bucks off the Kenedy Ranch in the years before his capture – 73 of which he killed himself. He received an 18-month probated sentence and paid $500 plus court costs. 

Charles Beaty wasn’t on anyone’s radar prior to the day he got caught, but every guy like him is on every game warden’s radar each day they put on the badge.  And on that February day in 1998, Joe Stiles and those seven game wardens gave their all.  They spent nine hours tracking Beaty over 18 miles of rough terrain.  When they finally caught up to him, they put on a masterclass on how to take down a poacher/thief/outlaw in the brush. Beaty’s arrest was handled professionally by a group of game wardens (and Joe) who knew how to handle themselves, and as Matt acknowledges, it probably wouldn’t have happened if just one of them hadn’t been there.  It was a team effort.  They were relentless, and it paid off. 

As a game warden, you just never know.  Every day is something new.   It’s a given that your pot of gold probably won’t come at the end of the rainbow, but sometimes, you might like what you find if you follow those footprints in the sand.   

Jon Brauchle is a former Texas Game Warden and writes a column, The Possum Cop Chronicles, about his time as a warden. 

 

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