This is mostly for Porter, but some of the rest of you guys might enjoy this, too.
I've been busier than a one-armed paper hanger, but I'll take time for a little fun once in a while. One of my buddies got drawn for the annual alligator hunt this year and we went this past weekend. The hunt is from 6:00 p.m. until 4:00 a.m. on one of 2 weekends on Friday and Saturday nights. You have to choose which weekend you want to put your name in the hat. We have 2 zones, the Pearl River and the Pascagoula River zones. The Pearl River zone is mostly the Ross Barnett Reservoir and a few miles of the river above it. That's where we were on the second weekend of the hunt.
The rules are that 60 people are drawn for each weekend. Each one of those permits entitles that person to 2 tags. The gators that fill those tags must BOTH be over 4 feet long and the SECOND gator CAN be over 7 feet long. We have a surplus of those slot gators and they need to come out of that reservoir, but unless they require that the little guy be taken first, very few are taken at all.
Well, my permit holder, Tim, had his wife, daughter and son, and a friend that piloted the boat, and myself to guide the hunt in the boat on the first night. At 6: 15, we saw a small gator and moved over to him. Tim snagged him on the first cast and we hauled the little guy in. He measured 51 inches and Tim got cocky. "Aw, this is EASY! We can catch a bigger one." ...and he threw him back in! fing20.gif We immediately started seeing BIG gators. Theoretically, we could have been tagged out and heading home before dark. Instead, we saw nothing but 2 footers and 10 footers for the rest of the evening.
About 3:00 a.m. we spotted one that looked like he might pass muster, so we started our stalk. I pitched the hook in the weeds with him and snatched him out. We got him on board and guess what he measured -- 51 inches! I looked around and saw that WE HAD CAUGHT THE SAME RUNT GATOR TWICE!!!user posted imageuser posted imageuser posted image End of night one. We went home.
NIGHT TWO:
The moon had filled a little more and it just got too bright. All those big gators that we left alone the night before had moved back into the weeds, not to be seen. We hunted all night, covered a lot of water and just could not find a gator of any size, or they would duck under water and move when we would turn the boat towards them. About 2:00 a.m. we started seeing a few legal gators move out to the edge of the weeds and lilly pads. Tim's son couldn't come that night, so he asked another friend of his, Roger, to come along. We were heading back to a 7 foot mama gator that we had found, along with about 15 of her babies, when we decided to check out a decent looking pair of eyes in the edge of the lilly pads. You can't tell how big a gator is by looking at how far apart his eyes are, but when the eyes were 4 inches apart, I knew he was probably a keeper, at least for the luck we were having. So we started our stalk. At about 60 yards, Dale cut the trolling motor off and we drifted. Roger kept the light rock steady and we edged closer and closer to our target, trying to get a look at his head. When we got close enough to determine size, we couldn't see the gator. All but his eyes were covered up with lilly pads.
I pitched the hook just behind him and rared back on the rod. That was no 7 footer! He EXPLODED out of the weeds and headed for open water!. I had the drag set tight to be able to horse a 7 footer in and end the hunt and this big boy ALMOST pulled me over the casting platform into the water. I managed to loosen the drag and get my balance back. I handed the rod off to Roger while Tim got a second hook in him. I settled back and directed activities and Dale maneuvered the boat for them until the gator went under a log and we settled in for the long haul. The gator sulled on the bottom and we had no choice but to wait. He would turn a little every now and then and, after about 45 minutes, this enabled Tim to work his line off the end of the log. Now I could see where the gator was. I took our third rod and pitched a hook out beyond him and eased it back along the bottom. Tim was telling me the whole time that he thought he was still under another part of the log because there was no give in his line. I didn't think so, and on the third cast and drag, I snagged something. It didn't move. Tim was laughing and said "I told you so."
Well, I just rared back on the rod to test this thing out and, with both Tim and me pulling hard, that "log" broke free of the mud. Tim looked at me and said " Are we pulling the whole log up?"
I said "No, we're bringing the gator up."
Once he realized that he had been pulled out of the mud, that gator came uncorked! He swirled and rolled and thrashed all the way up! And when he broke the surface, you should have seen the faces of every one of those people in that boat, They knew that he was better than 8 feet long, but they weren't expecting THIS:
I gave my rod to Brandi and got a snare over his head and we dispatched him. He measured about the width of your thumb short of 11 feet -- 10 feet 11&1/4 inches!
What a hunt! What a night!
(that's me in the white t-shirt)
Hey!... I gotta do SOMEthing in the off season!
