Friday 24th 2007 Jack, Jesse & I Jason where ready to go hunt our Alligator for the season. We then we left my house @ 6:00pm full tank in the airboat two harpoon rigs and about 80lbs of ice, I had already scouted this trip the prior week with the wife as a nighttime joy ride and had a great time. I thought this would be great; we could get to the dock just before dark get setup and head out hopefully get back @ an early time. Then about ten miles down I75 Alligator alley it started raining and lightning really badly. I called my wife and asked her to look on the PC radar. Her response was not encouraging she informed us it looked as if clouds where building. We where still going to the dock we wanted to hunt. There was a moment when we where driving to the dock and on the north side of the road where the power poles are, lightning hit a pole directly accost from us it was very eye opening made me jump like he_l and I was driving. So we arrived at the boat dock as we expected around 7:45 however with the storm it was dark out and the lightning encouraged us to stay in the truck. So we waited. Both rain & lightning lightened up around 9:00 we hoped it would letup even more of the lightning was our concern. We were finally able to unload in a light mist around 10:30. We headed out on the airboat not seeing very many eyes and most not very promising many out that where only 6-7. We decide to ride more East near Holliday trail and there he was sitting in a nice open water spot as I slid the boat around he started heading to the tall grass. I got the boat between him and the grass turned him to a direction that worked better for us and we by the agreed he was a good keeper size. We got our harpoon rig ready and Jack gave the love of the 2” harpoon dart in a great spot of the horn back between the fronts shoulders, Mr. Gator got a little mad headed of across the marsh dragging airboat along with the 20ft lead we tied off to the front grass rake. When the Gator finally got tired about 5-7 minutes we pulled over to him and relieved him of any more distress with the assistance of the 44mag stick. I then tied a harness in an x pattern around his forward section and with jack on the opposite side of the boat for ballast Jesse and I was able to drag the alligator into the boat when we soon realized we needed to tape the mouth shut for safety purposes. Mouth taped and tail tagged we then proceed to position the 9.4ft 290lb male gator (Length and weight was later determined) so that we could head on back to the dock where we arrived around 1:30. We then stopped @ the Seminole rest area station where we toped off the Alligator with the ice we brought and 15 more 10lb bags from the store & many inquires from passing customers in & out of the store after covering with heavy blankets. This healed ice until the morning where I called Griffin taxidermy in PuntaGorda and arranged for a 2:30 drop-off. Then went to a friend’s house where he allowed me to cover him with ices from his machine. Prior to covering him we were able to get some additional pictures and soon we will be able to get the hide back and have some nice apparel made. The idea so far is 3 belts for the 3 hunters and maybe some wallets.
Even providing our own hide the rates are still very expensive but remember the experience.
Ok how do i get a pic on here?
Even providing our own hide the rates are still very expensive but remember the experience.
