Editor’s note: I’ve been wanting a gator hunting NOadventure for a long time. Luckily we have guest writer Baxter’s submission to start off the season.
Gator Hunting in Bayou Pigeon, LA(opening day).
While most of my people were hunkering down in New Orleans during hurricane Isaac, my wife, baby, a few in-laws, and I were living off the land in the Atchafalaya Basin. We spent our time eating alligator gar, wild oyster mushrooms (at least they looked like oyster mushrooms), and raccoon fricassee.
These are probably oyster mushrooms(fingers crossed).
This past Saturday was opening day of alligator season. On Friday, we baited up 10 gator lines with some uber-skanky rotten chicken leg-quarters, then strategically dangled them from willow and cypress branches on the edge of Grande River over a span of about 3 miles.
The next morning we took out the boat, a 14 foot, 30 year-old, home-welded flat boat with a Go Devil motor(no reverse). As we approached our first line, we saw that it was in the water and twitching pretty good. We figured it was a 5 or 6 footer. After clearing some weeds and giving the line a few good tugs, the massive head of what looked to be a Tyrannosaurus Rex surfaced, then proceeded to death roll. We all shit ourselves. When we got him to surface again, we busted a puny little .22 cap in his head, which did nothing but fill the monster with an acute man-eating rage.
His thrash was so fucking unbelievably violent that I thought he was going to capsize our shitty little boat and murder us all. He eventually calmed down, and the second shot penetrated the sweet spot and blew up his tiny little brain. After a few nervous twitches, it was lights out.
On the river with the mythical beast.
It took three strong but hungover dudes about a half-hour to pull his fat ass in the boat. Another half-hour to pull him onto shore with a tractor and load him onto a boat trailer that had only one wheel. He measured in at 11 feet, 2 inches, and roughly 50,000 lbs.
Portable gator.
Me and my homie.
Measuring up.
Later that day we ended up catching 6.5 ft, 7 ft, and 8 ft gators. Great success!
If you ever see gators like this in the wild, be quiet. they are probably just resting.
As an added bonus, I’ve included a prequel video of my buddy, Wes, doing his best at baiting the gator hooks with the rotten chicken. MAKE SURE the sound is on!
NO Adventure 