FREEDOM22
Member
It happens every year as it has since GA had a season, All of the hunters that are new to alligator hunting go out this week and weekend and light up the night with spotlights and loud surface drive motors, airboats, and outboards.
While everyone needs to educate themselves on where the safe waters are (daylight) and find where gators are(everywhere) all you succeed in doing is hurting yourself come opening night.
So be patient, opening night will come and the gators you saw the week before will have been pushed further back into the swamps. And this brings me to another topic:
Etiquette while gator hunting: If you saw an orange vest in a tree while hunting public land you wouldn't walk up to the tree or continue in that direction, would you?
So if you are running around at night with your spotlights blazing and you see another boat working in an area ,treat it as an orange vest. Yeah it may make you mad that someone is in a place that you saw a gator, but he is already there so back off.
I'll mention a hunt from last season:
It had just broken daylight and we had been waiting for hours and hours for a large gator to resurface and he finally did about 100 yards south of us on the hooch. I saw a bass type boat with a guy standing on the front deck using his binos and he jumped into the drivers seat , started up the big outboard and from 1/4 mile away with no regard for us. (clearly we are gator hunting) speeds in our direction and drops a trolling motor and starts closing the distance,
The gator is still cruising south and I'm running on high 102lbs thrust trolling motor trying to keep up,
Needless to say the gator saw the boat closing in in front of him and down he went again. I continued passed the spot he went down, and of all things the guy says, with 2 females and another male with him was'' you see that gator I was after?''
well the exchange of pleasantries was brief and soon the outboard fired up and he was gone, 30 mins later the big boy surfaced and met my treble hook an it was over.
All anyone ask for is mutual respect, and if you act as if you were raised half right most of the guys who are on the water full-time will help you or share valuable tips. But treat folks raw and raw is returned.
Good luck on the water, be safe and be respectful.
I'm available to share info and techniques if anyone needs help,, and no I'dont own the water and we all as Americans share this great land. So treat folks like brothers and sisters of our great nation. God Bless !!
While everyone needs to educate themselves on where the safe waters are (daylight) and find where gators are(everywhere) all you succeed in doing is hurting yourself come opening night.
So be patient, opening night will come and the gators you saw the week before will have been pushed further back into the swamps. And this brings me to another topic:
Etiquette while gator hunting: If you saw an orange vest in a tree while hunting public land you wouldn't walk up to the tree or continue in that direction, would you?
So if you are running around at night with your spotlights blazing and you see another boat working in an area ,treat it as an orange vest. Yeah it may make you mad that someone is in a place that you saw a gator, but he is already there so back off.
I'll mention a hunt from last season:
It had just broken daylight and we had been waiting for hours and hours for a large gator to resurface and he finally did about 100 yards south of us on the hooch. I saw a bass type boat with a guy standing on the front deck using his binos and he jumped into the drivers seat , started up the big outboard and from 1/4 mile away with no regard for us. (clearly we are gator hunting) speeds in our direction and drops a trolling motor and starts closing the distance,
The gator is still cruising south and I'm running on high 102lbs thrust trolling motor trying to keep up,
Needless to say the gator saw the boat closing in in front of him and down he went again. I continued passed the spot he went down, and of all things the guy says, with 2 females and another male with him was'' you see that gator I was after?''
well the exchange of pleasantries was brief and soon the outboard fired up and he was gone, 30 mins later the big boy surfaced and met my treble hook an it was over.
All anyone ask for is mutual respect, and if you act as if you were raised half right most of the guys who are on the water full-time will help you or share valuable tips. But treat folks raw and raw is returned.
Good luck on the water, be safe and be respectful.
I'm available to share info and techniques if anyone needs help,, and no I'dont own the water and we all as Americans share this great land. So treat folks like brothers and sisters of our great nation. God Bless !!
