Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Lincoln County Fish and Wildlife Officer Curt Wood inspects a black bear trap after he found it empty. The trap had been planted for a week after bears were sighted by residents of Seven Bays in the last week.
SEVEN BAYS – The life of a local Fish and Wildlife officer can take one from Clark to Seven Bays, or from Seven Bays to Sprague, or all the way into Spokane County by Medical Lake and Airway Heights, as The Times learned Friday, July 30 when invited on a ride-along for the day with Lincoln County Fish and Wildlife officer Curt Wood.
The day started with a drive to Seven Bays via Hawk Creek Road and Miles Creston Road to inspect a bear trap that had been planted there for about a week. Reports of black bears digging into garbage and coming a little too close to people's houses had been coming from local community members, but thus far, the bear hadn't taken the bait of donuts left in the trap.
Wood said the trap would be removed that day if there was no bear in the trap, and that was the case. After speaking to a couple locals, he hooked the bear trap to his work truck and hauled it back into Davenport.
The bear was apparently a smart cookie, as it came back into Seven Bays the day after the trap was removed. Wood subsequently returned the trap Sunday, Aug. 1, and the bear hasn't taken the bait yet.
"We'll see if we can capture it," Wood said.
After the trip to Seven Bays, the ride-along chugged east into Spokane County, where Wood was following up on some potential fines to levy for dumping trash near Silver Lake in Medical Lake. The next stop was at Lake's Harvest Foods on the northwest side of town, where Wood collaborated with the manager of the store to run a debit card number he found in a trash bag dumped by some youths over the weekend at Silver Lake.
He then stopped at Silver Lake to make sure people had the correct Discovery Passes, fishing licenses and state-certified material to be legally boating and fishing on the popular, tiger muskie-filled lake. A similar check for trash and tags was then conducted at Clear Lake, which is southeast of Silver Lake.
The ride-along events concluded with a trip to Airway Heights to try to locate a man who was facing a fine for dumping trash over the weekend, also at Silver Lake. The man apparently worked at a hotel in town, but wasn't at work at the time, so an address was recovered. The man wasn't home, but Wood got in contact with him and had pleasant exchanges with this fellow.
The perpetrator was remorseful and pleasant to Wood, so Wood gave him just a $150 fine instead of the maximum fine of over $1,000.
After searching for this man in Airway Heights, the ride-along headed back into Davenport to conclude a six-hour day of hunting down bears and trash dumpers in Spokane County. Wood was still looking for the bear and another trash-dumping suspect at Silver Lake as of press time. He's been carrying out similar duties related to fishing, wildlife and the outdoors of Lincoln County for over 30 years.
Drew Lawson is the editor of the Davenport Times. He is a graduate of Eastern Washington University.
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