I’m not really a history buff, but I like hearing old cowboy and hunting stories and how things used to be. As a kid, my high school had a series of books about this kid who wanted to be a game warden. He was raised by his grandparents and in the second book, he ultimately became a game warden.

The time period was when Fish and Game had just started. He was trying to teach people to obey game laws. He showed them how if they killed a doe in February, they were actually killing three deer. I wish I could remember the name of the books or the author. A couple of years ago, I stopped by my old high school but of course those books had been purged.

So with that bit of history in the back of your mind, you’ll understand why I was excited upon making the following discovery. Last week between conducting seminars at the Great Northwest Outdoor Expo, I was walking around looking at exhibits and came upon the Idaho Fish and Game booth.

The main display at their booth was a refurbished 1957 Chevrolet 3100 1/2 ton, 2WD shortbox pickup. In its younger days, it had been used at the Sandpoint Hatchery as an all-purpose pickup as well as a fish hauler. In case you didn’t know, in the old school days they put a small tank in back of pickups to transport fingerlings for planting in various creeks, rivers and ponds.

It has been refurbished and is immaculate. I guarantee you, if you saw the truck, it would catch your eye.

But let’s back up and give a little history as to how it came into being. Mick Hoover, the Mackay Hatchery Assistant Manager presented the idea of a restored Fish and Game vehicle to Terry Thompson, the Morrison-Knudson Nature Center Superintendent. Terry liked the idea and forwarded it to the acting I&E Bureau Chief John Gahl.

After working out all the ins and outs, they located a truck that had actually seen duty planting fish. Dehryl A. Dennis at the Professional-Technical Education Center in Boise agreed to take on the restoring project for the collision repair class in the fall of 2002. Instructors Juel Mickelson and Don Corch look for community service projects every year and were game. Their students did all the exterior bodywork and paint.

From there it went to the Fish and Game Truck Shop in Eagle, where numerous items were replaced and modified. Then it went on to Les Schwab’s for tires and City Radiator & Muffler shop. A vintage bench seat replaced the old bucket seat at Jim’s Auto Upholstery shop. A long list of other shops and individuals helped out as well.

Now for the tough one. Where would they ever find an old fish tank to put in back? By chance, a 200-gallon tank was found on the Gordon Harris ranch 1 mile below the Mackay Hatchery and donated in December 2001.

The tank has a 3-inch discharge opening and has a screened intake for re-circulation with six sprayer heads that run off of a small gasoline engine and pump. There are four baffled sections in the forward 2/3’s of the tank with the remainder open at the rear for netting fish. The tank dates to the 1940s and is most likely their first slid-in tank.

Everyone did an excellent job preparing this antique. I sincerely doubt that it looked this nice coming off the sales floor when it was bought. When I walked down the aisle, it was so bright that it drew me to it like a magnet. It was the flashiest display at the expo.

So if you have a chance sometime to check out this truck, you ought to do so. As I admired it, I couldn’t help but drift back in time and imagine an old crusty game warden bouncing down a trail at daylight heading up to a high mountain lake or river to drop off some stockers for some anxious fishermen.

What a cool piece of restored history. Good job Mick and everyone else who was involved.

Tom Claycomb lives in Idaho and has outdoors columns in newspapers in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana. He also writes for various outdoors magazines and teaches outdoors seminars at stores like Cabela’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Bass Pro Shop.