Any mention of Curtis Jackson Prock ?

[Pistolero35743]

I am interested in finding out if there is any information or stories concerning a Guide named Curtis Jackson Prock?

[billrquimby]

I am interested in finding out if there is any information or stories concerning a Guide named Curtis Jackson Prock?

 

If you mean the Curtis Prock who was accused of conducting canned hunts for jaguars and black bears in Arizona in the 1960s, I understand he is living somewhere in Maricopa County. I'd heard that he operated for a while in New Mexico and Idaho, I think it was, after leaving Arizona. (New Mexico also found him guilty of operating canned hunts.) He reportedly also ran some jaguar hunts in central or South America for a while. These probably were legitimate hunts because Prock actually was a good houndsman with lots of success on lions and bears before he turned outlaw.

 

Interestingly, Bob Hernbrode Sr. (father of our recent game commissioner) was the AZGFD officer who busted him. Prock guided at least two prominent people to jaguars in Southern Arizona. George Herter of the Herter's mail order catalog company was one of them, and he went on to write and publish a book on how to hunt jaguars. This was before Prock was cited for releasing caged cats and bears in front of his hounds, of course.

 

To answer your question, you might want to ask Bob Hernbrode, Jr., about what he remembers his father telling him. I don't know of any books or magazine articles, though. Outdoor Writer may be able to add something, too. There also is some info about Prock at the tail end of the pinned thread on the Big Ten Award.

Bill Quimby

[CouesWhitetail]

Some very interesting info Bill. Thanks for providing it!

[.270]

seems like someone said he died recently. i mighta dreamed it too. last i knew for sure he lived in young. north side of the little town some, on the east side of the road. there was sign advertising his guide service on the side of the road. last time i was there i don't recall seeing the sign tho. he did move to south america for some time and guided a lot of jag hunters. hunter wells went down there with him. and he did get in trouble up here. but he was a very good lion and bear hunter. Lark.

[billrquimby]

seems like someone said he died recently. i mighta dreamed it too. last i knew for sure he lived in young. north side of the little town some, on the east side of the road. there was sign advertising his guide service on the side of the road. last time i was there i don't recall seeing the sign tho. he did move to south america for some time and guided a lot of jag hunters. hunter wells went down there with him. and he did get in trouble up here. but he was a very good lion and bear hunter. Lark.

 

Lark, are you back from Nova Scotia?

 

Prock was convicted in Arizona, New Mexico and another state for conducting fraudulent hunts, but he also caught a lot of wild lions and bears for his clients and had a good reputation among Arizona trophy hunters in the 1950s and early 1960s. After it was known that he had released jaguars and at least one zoo bear, every animal he had ever caught for a client came under suspicion.

 

I was interviewed about a year ago by someone who is doing a report for the Cattle Growers Association about jaguars in Arizona, and when I mentioned Prock and the jaguars he had released, she said she had spoken with him a few days earlier. I think she said he was living with a family member in Gilbert, or Eloy. Don't remember for sure.

 

Bill Quimby

[.270]

nope, i'm still in halifax. i get a minute or 2 ever once in awhile and i look at this thing. glad to hear curtis is still kickin'. i only met him a ocuple times. he did get in a bunch of trouble i guess. that was decades before i met him. he went to i think beliz after that because he couldn't get a license here for awhile. he knew what he was doing with hounds and from the little i got to pick his brain, i learned a lot. he like to use "power" dogs. tough, mean dogs that could get a bear or a lion by the tail and make him go up a tree. i didn't know he'd done the deal with the jags. i'd always heard it was lions that he had caught and kept caged until he got a hunter. whatever, that was a long time ago. i've known of several guys that would do the same thing. at least one of them got busted for it too. one of the funniest stories i ever heard was about a deal like that. i'm doing ok up here. sorta cold, and never gets warm. snows at least a little every day. having a lot of fun and enjoying doing something i'm good at again. later, Lark.

[azslim]

no fair teasing, you have to share the funny story........

[36b Fanatic]

Interesting article from SI of all places.

 

 

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1088195/index.htm

[Outdoor Writer]

Bill,

 

I seem to recall an incident with Prock here in AZ that occurred about 50 years ago, like in the early to mid 1960s. I'm not positive it actually involved him, but I recall someone getting nailed somewhere in one of the White Mt. towns or maybe Payson with a lion in a cage. If my memory is correct, Prock -- or whoever it was -- was having lunch in a local restaurant when someone, maybe an AGFD guy, spotted the caged cat in the back of Prock's truck.

 

Do you recall any of that or perhaps know who that was?

[billrquimby]

Could have been, but I don't remember that incident, Tony. As I remember Prock's bust, Game and Fish used an undercover agent and busted him for staging a phony hunt with a bear he had bought from a roadside zoo as well as the jaguar he smuggled into the state and George Herter shot near Pena Blanca lake. He was convicted on both state and federal charges.

 

Bill Quimby

[Outdoor Writer]

Could have been, but I don't remember that incident, Tony. As I remember Prock's bust, Game and Fish used an undercover agent and busted him for staging a phony hunt with a bear he had bought from a roadside zoo as well as the jaguar he smuggled into the state and George Herter shot near Pena Blanca lake. He was convicted on both state and federal charges.

 

Bill Quimby

 

 

It must have been someone else then, because I know the incident did happen.

[My Rights As An American]

I am reading this and am amazed at the vast amount of knowledge the two of you bring to this site. Us younger hunters (I am 35) should be so proud and honored to have your expertise, experience and knowledge to share with us. Please do not take that as any slight towards whatever age you are. I mean it as nothing more than a tremendous compliment of how much institutional knowledge of the outdoors and Arizona that you bring to the table that is not always in a book to read! Thanks again!

[billrquimby]

Could have been, but I don't remember that incident, Tony. As I remember Prock's bust, Game and Fish used an undercover agent and busted him for staging a phony hunt with a bear he had bought from a roadside zoo as well as the jaguar he smuggled into the state and George Herter shot near Pena Blanca lake. He was convicted on both state and federal charges.

 

Bill Quimby

 

 

It must have been someone else then, because I know the incident did happen.

 

I'm sure it happened, Tony, and it could have been what led to the undercover investigation and eventual bust of Prock for canned hunting. I just don't remember that particular incident.

 

It probably is safe to say that even though it wasn't legal, even then, that houndsmen other than Prock may have used captive animals, including mountain lions, to train their hounds. Prock's crime was in selling "hunts" for caged animals to his unsuspecting clients. It was fraud, pure and simple. And to commit it, he broke a bunch of federal and state wildlife laws.

 

The amazing thing to me was that after he was banned from guiding in Arizona, he did the same thing in other states. I know two of his clients who were on canned hunts in New Mexico with him (they were mentioned in the Sports Illustrated article on this thread), and they obviously had not heard about his problems over here.

 

Bill Quimby

[billrquimby]

I am reading this and am amazed at the vast amount of knowledge the two of you bring to this site. Us younger hunters (I am 35) should be so proud and honored to have your expertise, experience and knowledge to share with us. Please do not take that as any slight towards whatever age you are. I mean it as nothing more than a tremendous compliment of how much institutional knowledge of the outdoors and Arizona that you bring to the table that is not always in a book to read! Thanks again!

 

 

Thank you. The little knowledge I may have acquired is one of the few good things about living long enough to become a certified old geezer.

 

Bill Quimby

[.270]

interesting article. i didn't know he got hammered twice. according to the article he is 96 now? i think i know who the guy in the other story is. funny story too. that guy died a couple years ago. i wonder how they got all them jags across the border? there was another high profile jag case a few years ago involving one of the klumps from bowie and some taxidermist. but i was told that after the initial bust it never went anywhere. it had undercover fbi guys, bighorn sheep killin' with no permits, jags, ocelots, margays, lacey act stuff, state lines and everthing too. Lark.