And now the story..........
We go tooling around in a jon boat in coves and swamps. Glass with binos and find one you want to take a run at. Well we saw this hog on the shore sunning himself about 200 yards away. So we drift towards him. Luckily the wind was behind us so we just moved with the breeze, trying to not blow the gators out of the swamp. When we get about 150 yds out, he slinks into the water and swims/floats on the surface. When we get to about 80 yards out, he disappeared into the water. Hoping he only sank and didn't swim away, we drifted to maybe 25-30 yards from where we think he went down and started casting a heavy treble hook on 90 pound test line. Since you can't see more than a few inches into the water, all you can do is cast the treble hook and drag it on the bottom, hoping to snag him. First cast........mud and grass. Second cast......mud and grass. Third cast..........snagged something that was definitely heavy, but not sure what it was. Could be a gator. Could be a stump. Well after a minute or two of tugging on dead weight, the dead weight moved. Game on.
So we followed him around the swamp, well actually he pulled us around, and tried to get some part of him to surface by putting pressure on the line. Can't reel him in, just wanted to get him to come up a bit. The next weapon is a pole with a barb on the end that is tied off on a rope. If you can stick him with the pole, then the barb gets lodged in him and slips off the pole, leaving the barb attached to the rope. That is when the rodeo starts. After 10 minutes or so of tugging with the fishing pole, he came close enough to the surface to get the barb and rope in him. Now he's really pissed off. So we get the barb in him around the base of the tail, but at this point all we got a look at was his tail. His body and head stayed under as he was trying to swim away.
The next trick is to get his head above water so we can shoot him with a handgun or hit him with a bang stick. So to wear him out, I pull on the rope and let the rope out. Pull on the rope and let the rope out. With the barb stuck in the base of his tail, getting the head to the surface is not easy but eventually he has to come up for air. This went on for an hour. Well when he decides to come up for air, he caught us off guard. He surfaced for maybe 3 seconds, grabbed some air and went back down again. ! Here we go again. Pull up. Let go. Pull up. Let go. So eventually we rigged up another pole with barb and rope to try to get a second line in him. Two guys pulling are better than one. Now keep in mind at this point we know he is big, but never got a good look at anything more than his tail. But we saw a monster tail so that is usually connected to a monster body.
So I start pulling harder to get more of his body to surface for the second barb. Right around the end of hour number two, I pull and the rope breaks. Gator is free and we just look at each other with that oh--what-now look. Next thing we know the gator surfaces about 10 feet away to get some air. My buddy had the pole still in his hand so he launches a spear at him and sticks him in the back. So now we went from losing him to having him back on a rope in a matter of 5 seconds. Amazing luck. Problem is we did not know how deep or how secure the second barb was so I gave him all the rope he wanted until my buddy rigged up another pole and barb. Once he got that rigged, I started pulling him in and got him close enough to the surface to drive a second barb in his back. And this is where he gets pissed some more.
So now each of us pulls to get his head close to the surface. We get him up shoot him in the head. Still fighting. Pull him up a second time and shoot him in the head. Still fighting. Pull him up a third time and shoot him in the head. He goes limp.......for a few seconds. Then starts swimming back to the bottom. I pull him up a fourth time and my buddy fires a bang stick into the sweet spot on his skull. Dead Gator. We think.
We get a rope around his mouth and pull it tight while he is still in the water and before we wrestle him into the boat. Gators come back to life sometimes and the last thing you want is a gator in a boat with you and no way of keeping his mouth shut. So we wrestle him into the boat and sit down for a minute to take a break and guess what. His tail starts moving. Now we throw him back in the water and pop him 2 more times in the head, then wrestle him back into the boat.
All in all, it took 3 hours from the time we snared him with the treble hook until he was for sure dead in the boat.
Worth every minute.
