THE GREAT GATOR HUNT
The Final Battle
Editor's Note: I can’t think of anything more
exciting than hunting big bull aggressive alligators
with a bow. This week I’ll take you with me on
a thrilling alligator hunt. Alligator hunting is primarily
a southern sport since gators don’t do well in
snow. Because regulations vary from state to state on
seasons, bag limits and equipment you can use, always
check the laws in the state where you plan to hunt.
After an hour's wait, Tadlock said, "We'd better
get this gator in the boat. If we don't, I'm afraid
we'll lose him. Put the bang stick on the end of the
harpoon, Ronnie." Groom screwed a metal fitting
containing a .44 caliber rifle shell onto the end of
the harpoon. If Groom hit the gator with the bang stick,
the shell would fire and kill the alligator. As Tadlock
felt the cable move, he knew the big bull had prepared
to come up for the last time. He instructed Groom to,
"get ready, Ronnie. He's coming up." When
the wide eyes and the huge body of the gator surfaced
not 3 feet from the boat,  Groom
administered the coup de grace. The gator threw his
head down and his tail up, rolling and thrashing beside
the boat and throwing murky water high in the air. We
feared we might capsize. I thought one or more of us
would get bitten before the big bull gave up. But finally
I saw the alligator's immense foot and back laying still
above the subsiding waves of black water. We tried to
put the Bunyan-sized gator in the boat but almost swamped
the craft. We towed him to the shallow side of the river
to a mud flat. All five of us had to get in the warm,
dark water up to our waists to try and drag that gator
out on the bank. We pushed and shoved to finally wrestle
our monster gator out on the shore while I worried that
another gator might lurk under the surface.
"That's the biggest gator I've ever seen,"
Tadlock told us. "Let's measure him." The
gator was 13-feet long and weighed over 800 pounds.
After a brief rest, we loaded the expired gator into
the boat, which required all the strength the five of
us could muster. The monster-sized gator entirely filled
up the boat. The war for the record-size gator had taken
five hours. We nearly lost the big reptile four or five
times and had several close  encounters
with the popping jaws of the bull gator's barrel-sized
head. The gator had given us a night of hunting, adventure,
excitement and thrills to last a lifetime. Although
I'd never participated in a bow-and-arrow gator hunt
before, I promise you it won't be my last.
More than 1 million alligators, a close relative of
the dinosaur, live in Florida. Because of their growing
numbers, alligators were taken off the endangered species
list in 1985. Statistics from a couple of years ago
show that Florida residents reported more than 12,000
threatening alligators in pools, motel fountains, golf
courses, schools and even the flame trench of the space
shuttle's launching pad to the state of Florida. Although
few gators actually attack humans, biologists have found
these incidences increasing, as alligators grow less
wary of humans and people feed them. Gators, which like
to eat fish, turtles, birds, deer and especially pets,
generally range between 6- to 14-feet long and can weigh
1/2-ton (1,000 pounds) or more. These reptiles' jaws
hold 80 teeth so strong they can snap a 2x4 like a toothpick.
One Floridian had a gator  turn
on his small flat-bottomed boat and take the front end
of the boat in its mouth before putting its teeth through
the aluminum bottom. Besides a body often described
as one massive muscle from head to tail, the alligator
also can see in the dark due to the crystals that line
its eyes and intensify light. Florida's 40 or so licensed
alligator hunters remove about 4,500 gators a year from
the state, transporting alligators 4-feet long or less
to other swamps. But they must kill bigger gators because
of their intense homing instinct. One gator the state
tagged, released and moved 25 miles away turned up at
the original site in less than a month.
TOMORROW: GATOR HUNTING SAVES THE WETLANDS
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