possitive press for airboaters an hunting

[plumcrazy]

I took too nice young women reporters from the tampa tribune on a gator hunt . we had talked to them last year at a grand opening of franks sons skateboard store in sebring the stores name is Gator so naturaly frank has a 13 ft full mount gator he harvested a few years back in the front window ,witch by the way is alot of fun to hide in the field during our yearly dove shoot gets em every time but back to to the point they saw the gator in the store an we commence to telling them about huntin gators an are love of airboating and invited them on a trip we took them opening night on arbuckle creek and they absolutly had the time of there life an i belive that we made some friends in the press as far as airboating and hunting. heres a link to the rest of the story.


http://www2.highlandstoday.com/content/ ... ters/?news

 

[scottginfla]

you can never have too many friends in the press

 

[bwright]

Geoff Oldfather: Lake Okeechobee night has a thousand eyes
By Geoff Oldfather (Contact)
Sunday, August 26, 2007

It's midnight on Lake Okeechobee.

Our airboat sits in 2 feet of water, and the lake's surface stretches into the darkness, broken only in the north, where miles away, brilliant flashes of lightning break up the darkness.

Mark Dombroski, a gator hunting guide for 16 years, points into the black and switches on the spotlight he's wearing like a hat.

Suddenly, hundreds of brilliant bright red dots sparkle in the water and islands of grass, twinkling evilly like red candles in a leering jack-o-lantern's eyes.

The eyes seem to be saying something.

Don't fall in. If you do, you're ours.

Alligators. By the hundreds.

Dombroski and Doug Sharp, president of the Florida Sportsmen's Conservation Association, have invited me out for the annual gator hunt.

When I bought the special license that lets me hunt on Sharp's permit, it seemed like a good idea.

Now I wonder.

Why am I miles from shore in midnight Blackness, surrounded by creatures that have proved their savagery by outliving the dinosaurs?

"If he splashes when we move up on him, he's swimming forward, and that's where you want to throw the harpoon," Dombroski tells me.

"If his head just kind of slips under without a splash he's backing up and you want to throw behind him."

The Florida Sportsmen's Conservation Association promotes and supports the annual hunts and Sharp points out it's a "management tool" state game management officials use to keep alligator populations at manageable levels.

Steve Stiegler, the wildlife biologist in charge of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's alligator management program, said there are "plenty of alligators.

"Alligator populations aren't endangered," Stiegler said. "On many water bodies where we allow the harvesting of alligators, there are increasing populations, and we would actually like to arrest that population increase."

We've already been on the lake four hours.

I hold a long pole with a detachable metal point about 2 inches long on the end. If we get close enough I'm to throw or jab the harpoon into the alligator so we can follow the float attached at the end of the long rope that's attached to the point. I'm supposed to do this twice, so we can get the gator up to the boat where it can be killed.

Finally, a few minutes past 1 a.m., we finally find a gator large enough to hunt — about 8 feet.

"You want to take this one? OK, get ready," Sharp says. Dombroski maneuvers the airboat trying to get in close.

And I throw. Water splashing and rope running, and the gator disappears — but the float tells us where he is.

We follow, and Dombroski maneuvers the line so the gator comes up near the boat, and I throw again.

Another huge splash and the gator is fighting as we pull it close enough so I can use the "bang stick," a harpoon fitted with a pistol cartridge on the end that kills the gator when I hit it below the back of its head.

We never saw that 12-footer Sharp and Dombroski were hoping for.

"But considering how low the water is, it's been hard to find anything bigger because they're all concentrating in the deeper water," Sharp said.

"So I'm happy," Sharp said.

Catch Geoff Oldfather on Sunday mornings from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. on The Coast, 101.3 FM, for the Coast Forum, live call-in talk radio on local issues.

ANNUAL ALLIGATOR HUNT

• Managed by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission http://www.myfwc.com

• Two alligators may be harvested with each permit

• The season began Aug. 15 and ends Nov. 1

• Florida Sportsmen's Conservation Association, http://www.fscai.com (561) 333-6848

• For guided hunts or lake tours e-mail Mark Dombroski: mark@ppmg.net


Comments(2)
#1 Posted by angryranger on August 26, 2007 at 8:45 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Now you've done Geoff!
Doing a hunting story is no doubt going to uncork the animal rights whiners.
Set up a kool-aid stand at the station. Her comes P.E.T.A. for an extended campout.

#2 Posted by kenmakee on August 27, 2007 at 5:51 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Nice piece of fluff Geoff, great.. you killed a gator.. Martin county elected officials, are you paying attention here? now... onto some news.

HOLY SHIITE! and I mean that in the kindest possible way toward those of the islamic persuasion... (ahem).. looks as though there has been some more convoluted shenanigans involving our illustrious city leadership!

Talk about interesting reading... take a look...

http://psldirt.blogspot.com/2007/08/turn...

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[bwright]

Affiliate member of the FAA, the Florida Sportsman's Conservation Association followed up their big alligator kickoff party by taking some news media people on educational alligator hunt. So far they have took Geoff Oldfather Stuart newspaper, Brian Albert WPBF News 25 which showed Sunday night Monday morning, afternoon, and night prime time news right after the South Carolina alligator attack perfect timing and now Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Willie Howard

By WILLIE HOWARD
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 20, 2007
The line of pickup trucks looked like a wagon train as it slowly moved along the dike road at Stormwater Treatment Area 1-West, a man-made marsh where a group of families and friends gathered before sunset Sept. 8 to hunt alligators.
The hunters' mood was festive. They'd been preparing for months, securing permits and readying gear, for the chance to harvest the toothy reptiles prized for their meat and skin. As the trucks rumbled east along the elevated dike, the hunters scanned the waters below for the Boats powered by combustion engines are banned from STA 1-W and other stormwater treatment marshes that clean water flowing into the Everglades. That means alligators must be hunted from the edges of dikes overlooking canals, where the gators' eyes glow red in the beams of spotlights.
Hunters can use small boats, but they'd rather hunt the powerful predators from land than from low-sided boats.
"We've got a boat to chase them, but we don't want to use it unless we have to," Tom McWatters said as he began the hunt with fellow members of the Florida Sportsmen's Conservation Association.
McWatters and other licensed members of the hunting party readied fishing rods rigged with braided line, strong leaders and weighted treble hooks. When the legal hunting time of half an hour before sunset arrived, the hunters drove slowly along the dike until they spotted the snouts of alligators on the water's surface.
They left their trucks and walked along the dike's grassy edge, debating which gator was large enough to be worth harvesting, judging from the distance between their eyes and the length of their snouts.
After choosing one, McWatters cast his hook and reeled it back several times. After a few casts, he hooked a large alligator that rolled and splashed, bending his rod. The hook dropped out of the gator.
Catching an alligator with a snatch hook is not as easy as it might seem. An alligator's skin is tough and hook barbs rarely penetrate. If the hook breaks free while the hunter pulls hard on his fishing rod, the treble hook can come flying back at the hunter.
As the dozen hunters moved along the canal, Joe Dombroski hooked a gator. His father, veteran gator hunter Mark Dombroski, called McWatters over for reinforcement. McWatters sank a second treble hook into the gator as it moved in the canal. When they had worked the gator close to the bank, fellow hunter George Woody hooked it with treble hook attached to a light rope.
"A bang stick would be nice," Woody called out as he and the other hunters held the gator close to the bank. Fellow hunter Bishop Wright arrived at the water's edge, loaded a bang stick and killed the alligator by discharging a .44-caliber bullet into the top of its head.
After its mouth was taped shut, the alligator was dragged from the edge of the canal to the top of the dike. Doug Sharp, a hunter, cut a slice in its tail and clipped on a tag. Unlicensed observers of the hunt were not allowed near the alligator until the tag was secure. The first gator of the night measured 9 feet, 9 inches.
Working along the canal on the east side, the group of hunters took several alligators, including one that measured 10-6. They worked in teams with fishing rods, harpoons and bang sticks as they fought heat and mosquitoes.
"We need a harpoon!" Mark Dombroski yelled after a hooked gator swam down a canal, pulling the fishing line across tall grass. Dombroski and two other hunters launched a small boat, which was pulled along by the gator. Within minutes, the sound of a bang stick rang out.
By midnight, the hunting party had seven alligators harvested and one tag left. The wind had died, leaving the canal's surface smooth and making the mosquitoes more noticeable. These early morning gators were wary. Light beams were kept to a minimum, and only those with fishing rods walked ahead of the group toward the gator snouts in the canals.
Even though they searched along the canals until 2:45 a.m., the hunters couldn't find another alligator large enough to harvest.
After a few hours of sleep, the hunters gathered the next morning at the home of Brian Jones, where they formed an assembly line of sorts, carefully removing the hides and cutting meat from the alligators.
"This puts a little more meaning into it when you do this all yourself," McWatters said as he worked a knife between the meat and the skin of an alligator, being careful not to damage the hide that would become a new pair of boots for his wife.
The soft hide from an alligator's belly makes the best purses, wallets and boots. Jones makes belts from tanned hides and purses from kits. He removes bones, called scutes, from the gators' armor-plated backs. The scutes, also known as osteoderms, look something like small sand dollars when they're clean.
Each hunter seemed to have a favorite way to prepare alligator meat. They cube or grind it for use in sausage, fritters, dirty rice, fried nuggets and gator gumbo.


:wink:

 

[Anonymous]

All of the GOOD press that can be had is going to be necessary in the very near future. The airboat sound issue is heating up across the State.

http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJ ... 092107.htm

State on brink of losing its treasures

By MICHAEL H. BROWN
COMMUNITY VOICES

September 21, 2007

Incredibly, airboats with extreme decibel levels are allowed to disrupt the quiet natural settings -- waking, too, those who live nearby -- while jet skis spew not only noise but petroleum pollution (several times a normal boat). If you took a survey of those who want airboats banned, you would be stunned: I am willing to gamble the percentage would exceed 90 percent. Why should a single airboat that can be heard for more than a mile ruin the experience for dozens of others?

Action must be taken to rein in the abuse to these delicate waterways. The solution is hardly unreachable. It takes only a concerted approach. To wit:
Creating new limits on jet skis and airboats. The pollution they cause, noise and otherwise, is well-documented, along with injury to wildlife.

For the full story, go to:
http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJ ... 092107.htm