He's not a giant but still a solid 11 feet, and fat....... 400# or so.
Here in NE FL they have been unusually skittish this year. We've had to work hard to catch good ones. Water has been high which is part of the problem. High water lets them get out in the trees and eat possums. And if they are in the trees we can't get at them.
This one dummied up shortly after sunrise. He was a good 1/4 mile from the bank and in 10 feet of water so we should by all rights have NEVER been able to catch him once he bolted, which he did while we were still a good hundred yards away.
Water was SLICK though and once we got to where we though he went down we could still see the swirls in the water from his tail where he powered off. Just took a couple of educated guess casts at where we figured he might have settled. Second one with the big rod came up lucky.
Kind of a odd gator too. Once we snagged him he did NOTHING. I knew he was on but when I set down with the 80 lb rod nothing happened. It was very unusual. He just let me slowly, and with a good bit of effort, haul him to the surface.
As soon as I realized what was happening I started yelling for the harpoon. Just as the gator reached the surface, with the harpoon still not ready ( Skip's getting old and SLOW!), the gator realized that there was a problem. He was about 2 feet from the boat facing away at this point.
When he let loose with that big tail at least 5 gallons of water came over the side of the boat. Soaked my feet. As you can see we chase them in a Flats boat whick sits VERY low in the water.
And to make the point of how tough the hunting has been take note of the secret weapon we employed.........BANANAS! Yes I know that is counter to superstition but the way things went the last couple of trips we figured a little reverse Karma might help.
Next trip we're taking a whole box of 'em!
And as you can see, my buddy Skip just will not smile...... When you're catching gators you're suposed to smile!
