Florida Swamp Lizards

[KayakMacGyver]

Hunting season kicks off every year in mid to late August with Alligators for our family here in Florida. My wife and I have been hunting them for around 12 years and feel like we hit our groove about 3 years ago. A friend and I drew some great tags this year and had early success on the first weekend (8/23). Friday night we set out with high expectations and were ultra conservative in our size evaluation. We passed on what we thought were several 9-10 footers, holding out for a 10.5 foot or bigger. In hindsight, I think we passed up some 11 footers on Friday night as it takes some time to shake the cobwebs off your binos and become accurate in your estimates. Storms drove us off the water early on Friday night, but we had a game plan to get up early Saturday morning and hunt until the end of legal time @ 10AM.



We got on the water at 5:30AM Saturday morning and immediately started seeing plenty of gators. It took some time, but at 8:30 we located a couple of solid candidates that we wanted to go after and started our stalk. I was able to get within the magic bubble of the closest gator before it submerged. Made a good cast with the snatch hook and came tight. Hooked up! 30 minutes later we had our first swamp lizard of 2019 in the boat, a 10'8.


The team quickly regathered and to our delight the second gator, which looked equally as large or larger, hadn’t gone far. We made our approach and after a little cat and mouse I was able to make a cast. The snatch hook found its mark and we were hooked up again. The fight lasted a little over 30 minutes and we were able to finish the deal about 10 minutes before legal hunting hours finished. The second gator went 10’10.

Both in the boat:





At the house:




We hunted Saturday evening and located a true giant (13 ft. +), but they don’t get that big by being dumb. He gave us the slip several times until we eventually ran out of light. I prefer hunting during daylight hours as it makes estimating size much easier, so we decided to back out and try again in the morning.



When we got on the water on Sunday we found the 13 footer not far from where we had left him on Saturday evening. He slipped up a little bit and we caught him out in open water. When this happens, you usually get a chance…but only one. Sure enough, after a long chase, he gave me a throw. Unfortunately, I mis-judged and under shot him by 2 feet. When that happened, the water exploded, and I knew the gig was up. He disappeared and the next time we saw him he was ¼ mile away heading into a thick swamp where he spends his days.



We regrouped and decided to check out a new area that looked promising on the map, figuring we will save one tag for the pursuit of the 13 footer at a later date. We found some more big gators and were able to seal the deal on another mature Bull gator just before the cut-off. Bangstick hit its mark at exactly 9:52AM. This one went 11’6.








We’ve got 1 tag left in the “premium” unit, and 2 tags for a county wide area where 6’ or better take a ride home in the boat. The alligators will get some reprieve for the next few weeks as I’m getting ready to head out to New Mexico for an elk hunt, but we’ll be back after them come late September. Hope to post pics of the giant bull gator right after my giant bull elk!

 

[Deleted member 16014]

Man that looks like a lot of fun!

 

[Rzrbck918]

That's awesome! Thanks for sharing. What do you do with them? Eat, sell?

 

[rwc101]

I'll whip up some remoulade...

 

[Jape]

That looks awesome! Would love a little more info, such as: do you shoot at the top of the head when you get them close enough? Do you eat them? Make some nice boots?

 

[KayakMacGyver]

That's awesome! Thanks for sharing. What do you do with them? Eat, sell?

We eat a lot of alligator meat as it's an excellent replacement for chicken in many recipes. We also give a ton away to family and friends. Our tags are considered commercial here in Florida, so we're able to sell all parts of the alligator as well. We will likely be selling meat this year as well. Hides are tanned for leather, skulls made into Euro Mounts and other parts of the gator are also saved for "trophy's".

I tend to have leather made into belts, wallets, etc. as gifts for people that help me out in my western travels since my wife and I are just getting into that game and it's all so foreign. We've been fortunate to meet some really great folks that have helped us tremendously, and alligator leather goods make a great "thank you".

 

[bowhuntmontana]

That is really amazing. Congrats, and thanks for sharing.

 

[KayakMacGyver]

That looks awesome! Would love a little more info, such as: do you shoot at the top of the head when you get them close enough? Do you eat them? Make some nice boots?

In a simple nutshell, the process on my boat goes like this:

Locate gator, stalk it, cast weighted treble hook (snatch hook) over its back and snag it. Once hooked up, get a second snatch hook in it as quickly as possible. Fight the gator until you can get it on the surface to then either a) harpoon it or b) shoot it with a crossbow and get a "hard line" in it. Once secured with the hard line, the fight is all but over. Pull the gator to the surface and use a bangstick of the .44 Rem Mag variety to dispatch said gator. Tape the mouth and roll him in the boat.

There are other methods, such as baited wooden pegs or running and gunning (not a literal gun, can't use those in Florida). Sometimes, if you're VERY lucky, you can harpoon or crossbow the hard line into them without snatching...but that's rare and almost never happens on big bulls.

 

[Jape]

In a simple nutshell, the process on my boat goes like this:

Locate gator, stalk it, cast weighted treble hook (snatch hook) over its back and snag it. Once hooked up, get a second snatch hook in it as quickly as possible. Fight the gator until you can get it on the surface to then either a) harpoon it or b) shoot it with a crossbow and get a "hard line" in it. Once secured with the hard line, the fight is all but over. Pull the gator to the surface and use a bangstick of the .44 Rem Mag variety to dispatch said gator. Tape the mouth and roll him in the boat.

There are other methods, such as baited wooden pegs or running and gunning (not a literal gun, can't use those in Florida). Sometimes, if you're VERY lucky, you can harpoon or crossbow the hard line into them without snatching...but that's rare and almost never happens on big bulls.

Very cool. I assume taping the mouth is done as a precautionary step in case they aren't as dead as you thought?!

 

[ignorethefringes]

Very cool! Great write up as well.

I think I only put in for alligator tags down here one time before they started requiring the tag fee up front. Since I had no experience and no where start I haven't put in again. Maybe one day I'll give it a shot lol. Y'all make it look like a lot of fun.

 

[Dave N]

Cool! Makes the one I got in Louisiana look like a baby!

 

[PAGOAT]

Very cool. Congrats

 

[KayakMacGyver]

Very cool. I assume taping the mouth is done as a precautionary step in case they aren't as dead as you thought?!

FOR SURE! Had an incident about 2 years ago where a gator we thought was dead climbed up and almost out of the boat while we were driving down the highway. The kill spot on these things is surprisingly small, so you really want to take as much precaution as you can.

 

[Irrelevant]

More questions: How big are these trebles and how thick of line? Braided? SS? How far can you cast? How many tags are there? How many gators do you see? This is so foreign but looks pretty dang cool.

 

[Frazier]

Awesome pics. I didn’t draw a tag this year

Them lizards sure are tough

 

[JTHOMP]

Congrats on some nice gators! This year will be my first time catching them. For our public land recreational tags we are only allowed to use set lines to catch them. I wish we could target them like most states. In my scouting trips so far I have only seen a couple that are 5-6 foot. Would prefer to try to snag those instead filling tags on the numerous smaller ones.

 

[TexanSam]

What part of Florida you from? My GF comes from the glades

 

[Carl 9.3x62]

Awesome! Sounds like so much fun.

 

[KayakMacGyver]

More questions: How big are these trebles and how thick of line? Braided? SS? How far can you cast? How many tags are there? How many gators do you see? This is so foreign but looks pretty dang cool.

Hooks are approximately 12/0. You can actually see one in the pic of the two gators in the boat. Hook is on the gator on the right.

I use 80 lb test spider wire invisibraid most of the time. This allows me to cast around 75 yards. I can use thinner line for longer casts, but feel don't like the trade off for accuracy. Within 75 yards I'm pretty spot on with my casts, within the 5 or so feet needed most of the time for a hookup. Beyond 75, my accuracy really diminishes and as mentioned in my OP you usually get just one shot on the really big ones.

I believe FWC issues approximately 6,000 tags available through Lottery. Number of gators you see really depends on the unit you draw. Just like big game hunting out west, some units have higher populations and quality than others. Where we hunted these gators, one could reasonably expect to see over 50 gators per outing. More if you're out there spot lighting. I hunt some tough hunting county tags and you're lucky to see a dozen gators in an evening sometimes.

 

[KayakMacGyver]

Congrats on some nice gators! This year will be my first time catching them. For our public land recreational tags we are only allowed to use set lines to catch them. I wish we could target them like most states. In my scouting trips so far I have only seen a couple that are 5-6 foot. Would prefer to try to snag those instead filling tags on the numerous smaller ones.

Appreciate it! Funny because I often wish we could hang baits with set lines. But, I get both sides of it and can see why youd be frustrated.