This story begins in 1995 on a dark and stormy night……Well I have to be dramatic as this story in itself was dramatic and fun at the same time.
To set the stage there are 4 players in this story. Myself which I will be the one speaking, My lovely and beautiful Wife which I’ll call Tayhon, My brother-in-law which goes by the name David (that’s what his father told me) and last but least Sandy, who at the time was David’s better half.
In the early nineties David would show us pictures of these gator hunts that looked fun. They would set up on a pontoon boat and go out in smaller boats for the hunts. The money was great at the time a single Gator could fetch several hundred dollars, and for a larger one the selling price was closer to a thousand dollars. There was also a higher limit I believe was 10 Gators at the time. Well this lit up Tayhons eyes the thrill of tracking and catching a gator plus making a profit was tantalizing.
At this time in Florida there was a lottery, which you put your name in, and if chosen you’d have the chance to bag 5 Gators within a weeks time. Well as Tayhon’s luck goes (she has some Excellent luck) she won (Hey she married me). David set everything up, the lake we (they) chose, harpoons, bang sticks, accommodations, everything.
All was set for a weekend of long nights and nappy days. We arrived on a Friday afternoon to find a fish camp located on Lake way out in the boonies. This lake is huge and sat real close to Ocala, about an hour north from where we lived. The cabins were very small, smelled fishy, and old. I loved it, Tayhon was less than enthused and afterwards said “Never again”. After checking the lake out and putting our boats in. (I had a ten foot v-hull with a 4 H kicker on it and David had a 16 ft flat bottom boat with a 10 H kicker.) We checked out the fish camps bait shop and store. When we went in there we saw baseball items all over and noticed they were all signed by Wade Boggs. Turns out Wade’s father owns this camp and was selling baseball trinkets on the side. Who is Wade Boggs, you may ask, well He’s a future hall of fame baseball player who ended his career playing with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. He had some hit record which He set while with the Rays, but before that He’s the guy who when they (another team) won the world series (not Tampa) He jumped on a policeman’s horse and rode around the field.
Well back to the story.
This story begins in 1995 on a dark and stormy night…….sorry I’ve said this before, Bogg’s bogged me down.
The rules in Gator hunting were basic, the winner of the lottery had to be aboard, can only hunt from sundown till sunup, could not use a rifle or bombs, had to use a spear of some sort. The bomb part upset me the most, seemed easier. I’m not a hunter, and most times I’ll save an animal before I’ll kill it. But here in Florida after the total bar of hunting Gators for a long period of years, made there numbers increase so dramatically there is no choice but to thin them out. The way We hunted them I call that a “True Hunt”. There were other hunters on the lake also, but they used airboats, which ran up to the gator at 30 mph and before the Gator new what hit them, they were dragging em back to camp. True…they got their limit in a couple of hours and were off drinking beers but it seemed no fair to the Gator.
Anyway back to the story.
This story begins in 1995 on a dark and stormy night…….dang, still bogged down!
So we set out that Friday night and headed to the north end of this lake. All of us wore baseball caps with spotlights attached that were wired to batteries aboard. We were able to switch them on and off with each person. The lights were needed to keep an eye out for Gators. At night when you shine a light in a Gator’s eyes they glow red and stick out like a sore thumb. You can also tell the size of the Gator by the distance between the eyes, farther apart the bigger.
With David at the front armed with a long harpoon, well a 8 foot pole with a removable spearhead, we started looking for the reds of their eyes. The spearhead was also connected to about ten foot of rope which was then connected to a empty Clorox bottle for use as a flotation device. We spotted many eyes, and crept up to a few only to be seen and off they run. We also had a trolling motor, which we used in stealth to try and sneak up on em. The 10-H motor worked pretty well also but had to be real slow with no throttle variation to scare them away. All the time I had to work. The motors would constantly be jammed with weeds, and when you’re in stealth mode, you have to be very quiet when “unweeding” the motor. After a few attempts at some Gators we were noticing fish jumping all around us as we were in stealth mode, seemed to be scaring them as we went along.
Finally David latched into one, there was a bunch of commotion as David was almost caught up in the rope as it went out. He secured the pole in the boat and yelled at us to keep an eye on the jug. The jug was moving very fast so I started to follow. Imagine a white clorox bottle dragging through the water half in half out, reminded me of the movie Jaws. The jug (Gator) finally slowed down and went down, the jug actually disappeared for awhile. When it rose up it wasn’t moving so we set up next to it and David gingerly picked it up and softly started pulling the rope. The rope was still attached to the gator as He pulled harder the gator started moving again, this time David held on to the rope. I’m sitting there thinking He’s crazy “let go let go”. But there was a method to his madness as the Gator started pulling the boat and all of us aboard. Tayhon was also freakin and asking David what He was doing. David explained that He was trying to tire the Gator out to get em next to the boat. Well we were both new to this, so we sat back and got a little tow for awhile. The Gator soon started tiring and David was able to retrieve more and more rope. As David got the Gator next to the boat He used a bang stick with a 44-caliber bullet on the end and banged it on the Gators head area. That was all she wrote for this Gator. The Gator seemed almost as big as the boat and when Tayhon got a close look she asked David “is it dead?” David said “it should be” Tayhon’s first Gator was huge and there was no way She would mess with this one until David used the bang stick one more time, which He did, just to be on the safe side.
Now we were way out at the north end of this lake, I had a hold of the tail Tayhon had a hold of the back legs, Sandy was holding the front legs and David had the head. Now What? The idea of dragging it back was quickly dispelled because of the high weeds we’d encounter on the way back. Soooo the Gator had to be lifted into the boat. We gave a first try and were unsuccessful, so after repositioning ourselves we were able to get em in with all 4 of us pulling. We made the trip back to the landing without incident and dragged the Gator up on shore and lifted it into the back of our truck. A little break and we were back out on the lake. Mind you it’s around midnight now.
We headed out west to the other side of the lake, at this time the airboats were already gone (must have bagged some) and we had the entire lake to ourselves. With a massive lake like this there was also a massive sky, which was crystal clear and you could see just about every star out there it seemed. Very relaxing and awe inspiring watching Gods great creation in action.
The rest of the night we were able to get one more, a lot smaller one, but it was fun. By this time, close to 6am, the sun started rising so we headed back to camp. Tried to get some sleep during the day but was tough. Wanted to do some fishing around the camp area but I was told it was the wrong time of the season to really catch anything good, but I tried anyway, nothing, oh well back to try some nappin’.
Saturday night came and we were headed back out to the same north part of the lake. This time it was a little over cast and very dark, so with our lights out and me watching David point his light for the direction I would steer the motor we set out for more. After David got a good look at one he told everyone to be very very quiet. We started to hear the fish jump again. This time one actually jumped in the boat. Tayhon and me both started giggling, but David shushed us up and we kept going forward. I had to put my foot over the fish to keep it from flapping all over. The Gator David was after gave him the slip so we sat back to look what we caught. It was a good size blue gill (sun fish, pan fish, other names) that we were good enough to let go after a good laugh. After that first one they seemed to be attracted to us, another 4 or 5 jumped in the boat through out the night.
As time went we were able to get another small Gator, about 8 foot. In that same area David said He was after this one that kept going down and moving that was a very large Gator. This one seemed to have figured us out, we heard a huge commotion out towards the center of the lake and everyone turned to look with lights. Way out there this Gator was arching his back flipping His tail. Must have been in defiance to us and a mock, “hehe you can’t catch me”. I wanted to run out there after him but David said it was pointless, He was on to us and could escape to the bottom for hours.
During one of our stealth modes we ran almost into the cypress trees only for David to hand catch a baby Gator which was about 10 inches long. The girls got a kick out of this but I was less enthused. I had to clean out the prop at least 4 times as we went in and then to get out. Okay enough of my bitchin. At this point we headed to the opposite side of the lake from our fish camp. This west side had the smaller connected lake. We tried in there but the airboats that were there earlier that night (they didn’t stay as long as Friday night) had stirred things up.
We were able to catch our limit of Gators at 5 but nothing as big as that first one. They measured in at from 8 to 9 feet in length. While on the other side of the lake we had an incident with the motor. It actually caught fire in around the carburetor while we started to head back. I’m sitting there “what do I do what do I do” well I was able to get a little water up in there to douse it. But that was the end of that motor for that night. You got to hand it to that Mercury 10 H I put it through some tough weeds, constant drag. For being an older engine and what we put it through it held its own. We were on our way back anyway with our limit so it was “all good”. Or was it…….
It took us forever getting across that lake on the trolling motor. Tayhon and Sandy both started paddling to help us get there quicker. By this time the sky was clear, we had a good battery, they ended up just daydreaming about the stars. Well I was. Beautiful night. We finally got back to the camp at sunup.
Setting of the Lake. Huge lake but very shallow, had seaweed, weeds out a long ways and in some spots a long, long ways out. Along the east side were a few houses plus the fish camp, all the way around there was nothing but swamps and woods. On the west side was a large inlet to another good side lake but that lake was mostly weeds, very shallow.
We had planned to use both boats since there was 4 of us but that was changed when we let Sandy try and drive my little 4 H 10 ft boat. The motor has the throttle on the side and she was used to it being in the handle. Well anyway for a test drive She put the boat into the dock at full speed forgetting where the throttle was, no one got hurt, talking about my boat and the dock. So we opted to fit all four of us in David’s 16-foot flat bottom boat. I drove then Tayhon, Sandy and David in the front. You got to imagine the top rail of the boat was at the most 12 inches above the water.
