This is a summary of an alligator hunt I did last week with two good friends. This year for a change of pace we elected to put in for a gator permit on a water body that was unfamiliar to us. We ended up with our first choice of Orange Lake during the first week of gator season (just south of Gainesville, FL). A couple of days prior to this hunt we scouted twice and had an idea of where two large gators maintained their territory. Our hunting platform was Eric"s 18 foot (1854) Go-Devil boat and 25 HP Kohler Go-Devil motor. Just like an airboat this combination is ideally suited for this type of hunting and travels over vegetation and skinny water quite easily. During our second evening of hunting my visiting friend from Texas, Dennis, managed to take his first gator, a nice 9 foot 4 inch male gator, and a couple of hours later Eric managed to take a 10 foot 1 inch male gator too. It was a memorable evening/morning hunt and here are some of the highlights.
This hunt was somewhat accelerated on account of Hurricane Francis and we decided that if we hadn"t gotten a large gator by the second night we planned on downscaling and taking a smaller gator as we figured the weather would deteriorate quickly making hunting impossible (our permitted hunt time is only one week long). We figured we had two to three evenings of good hunting weather before the weather turned too stormy.
First Night/Morning hunt: The first gator we worked (~ 7 footer) we were able to get right next too quite quickly, but since it was our first gator of the evening (not a large one) and our first day of hunting we decided to pass on him. We were kinda shocked at being so close to him since we normally hunt Rodman Reservoir and the Rodman gators don"t let you get so close so easily. We started to think this would be an interesting night with plenty of chances at gators, but it didn"t prove to be as we were not able to get close to any of the larger gators. With the exception of the first gator the others were quite skittish the whole evening. We ended back at the ramp around 2 a.m. and were politely greeted by a lone FWC officer who asked a few quick questions then went back to finish writing a warning to two individuals who had a gator in their airboat, which was still alive (required to be dead).
Second Night/Morning hunt: On this hunt we had my friend, Dennis, who had just flown in from Texas, exclusively for this hunt. Since we couldn"t get close to the gators the night before we switched tactics and started baiting selected gators using rancid meat affixed to a 7/8"s inch wooden dowel (by regulation it must be just short of two inches) tied to 40 feet of braided twine to which is further tied into 60 lb monofilament spooled on a Penn Senator 4/0 reel (and rod). The idea is that the gator swallows the bait and the dowel gets "caught" in the stomach and you pull the gator up to the boat while a partner is standing by ready with a harpoon. For this year, the bait of choice was rancid chicken and we found it to work just as well as the rancid hog lungs we normally use. The first couple of gators that took the bait headed for the thick aquatic vegetation. After clearing a hole in the vegetation we would gently pull the gators up to the boat, but invariably they would hit the bottom of the boat and then take off pulling the boat around a bit. One gator was small and the other was around 8 foot, but after a bit of tug-of-war it came up head first, opened its mouth and we watched the bait pull out. 0 for 2.
The next gator was a nice one and it headed into the thick vegetation so we again had to scoop the vegetation away to make a clearing in order to see it"s size. It eventually headed to deeper water (tactic of larger gators), which made it easier to control and handle. Seeing it was at least an 8 footer Dennis made a nice harpoon shoot in the neck and it started taking line. We then lightly pulled it back toward the boat and Dennis secured a second harpoon in the neck area. Bringing it up to the boat again we maneuvered and submerged the head with a paddle and Dennis made a good shot with the 44 magnum bang stick to the back of the head. About this time an FWC airboat with two FWC officers came up to our boat (must have been watching us with night vision gear?) and waited for us to bring the gator into our boat and affix the gator tag. In response to the officers statement that the gator needed to be dead before it was brought aboard our boat, Dennis did a corneal reaction test (he"s a VET), which indicated it was dead. With the gator on board the officers then asked to see our permits and IDs. They were both polite and professional and after they checked us over we talked a bit about gators and the lake. At one point I checked to see what the sex was of the gator and found it to be a male. The two officers got a good laugh from that as I apparently aroused the deceased gator and they got to see what a male gator sports when it"s time to make little gators. I then got a bit of friendly hammering in the middle of Orange Lake from the two officers on account of my prowess at gator sex determination. I suppose it was kinda funny. After a couple of pictures they left and we went back to hunting.
Our next attempt resulted in a small 5 footer taking the bait and eventually releasing the bait. The next gator appeared to be a good gator, but skittish. We placed the bait and backed away leaving line out as we backed up. An hour later he picked up the bait and swam across the lake (at this point ~ 200 yards wide). We then started pulling in line and he became quite active and did quite a lot of pulling the boat and trying to swim off. He finally settled down and hung on the bottom and we gently lifted him up. Knowing this was a large gator, Eric jammed the harpoon behind the neck at the first chance and all hell broke loose [we later noted that the three inch harpoon shaft (5/16" diameter) had a serious bend to it as it had penetrated through of one of the very hard raised scales found all over their backs]. After pulling the boat around and rolling a few times we pulled him closer again and Eric secured a second harpoon in the neck. Pulling him back to the boat and submerging his head the 44 mag bang stick did its job again and we had our second gator (2 a.m.). We then took some pictures, drove to the gator processor and dropped off the gators in their cooler, and ended up home by 5:30 a.m.
It was a most interesting couple of nights and a VERY impressive animal to hunt.
Brian
Chicken-on-a-string""
An unhappy 9 foot gator at boatside
Two FWC Officers checking up on us
Picture the officers took
Close up of two detachable harpoon heads
Dennis"s first gator, 9 foot 4 inches (Eric on right).
10 foot unhappy gator with one harpoon line attached
Bang stick plunging in the water (not yet exploded)
Coming aboard
Two gators on the bow
An awesome hunt!
Gator Hunt summary w/pictures: 9/01-02 04. Orange Lake, FL
