Old Guys, thunderstorms and gators...............
God looks out for the stupid........at least last night he did.
Hardly a hour into the opening day of gator season found us COWERING, and when I say COWERING I mean COWERING!, under a pitiful excuse for a dock, simply hoping to avoid getting hit by lightning.
The wind was blowing the rain so hard, and the dock was so small and shoddy, that we'd never even entertained the idea that we'd stay dry under it but as it was the only dock in vicinity we did hold out hope that it would at least provide some protection from the lightening.
About 20 minutes into the worst part of the storm even that hope of not getting struck by lightening almost evaporated as a bolt hit a cypress tree next to the dock walkway, not 25 yards form the boat, sending a large limb crashing down through the walkway.
Darn thing hit so close that what we experienced was a click, flash, boom! almost as one event.....and then the smell of it.
After about 45 minutes we decided that the worst part had passed, even though it was still raining a bit, so we run back up the lake......away from the storm!, towards the ramp.
That's one part of being old......you figure to get in a few good hours and then go recharge. And as we were soaked, frustrated, had ringing ears, and sense we could see more storms coming from the west it just made good sense to work back towards the ramp intending to put the boat on the trailer at about dark.
And then Yul spotted this guy up along the bank. Neither Skip nor I could see it but Yul insisted it was there and as you can see he was right.
Not very long, 10' 10".......but look how FAT that pig is. Based on the weight of the constispendt parts ( I spent the afternoon cleaning him. ) I'd say 500-550 is a reasonable guess.
In fact the jowls, the muscles that close/hold the jaw closed, weighed 19#.....that is 19# pounds of muscle dedicated to one task, slamming that mouth shut.
And for reference, those are 6 foot by 30 inch tables........note how far his legs hang over the sides!! And Richard, the guy working on him is almost 200#.......
