Redman54
Senior Member
I talked my buddy into putting in for Zone 8 instead of his usual zone 9. Him and my oldest son went down to the coast house early Friday afternoon, put the boat in the water and I met them after work later in the evening. We got the gear ready and waited for "sunset". We started by going up the North Newport River towards I-95 but the biggest we saw was around 5 foot. We eased up in a small creek that borders an abandoned golf-course hoping to find a 10+ footer that I've seen several times fishing this summer. As we were easing up the creek, we hear one gunshot, followed by 2 more. We were a tad too late for that one so we turned around and headed towards St. Catherines Island. We covered water from I-95 all the way to St. Catherines sound. We saw plenty of gators but all were in the 5 to 6 foot range. We were about ready to head to the house when we decided to check one more small creek that was towards the south end of Johnson's Creek. As we were easing up to the mouth of the creek, my son spotted some eyes deep in the marsh grass. I eased up to the marsh so we could get a good look at him and my buddy confirmed he wanted to try to harvest him. He hooked him with my offshore pole and the fight was on. The gator thrashed his way out of the marsh into the river and under the boat and broke off. As he came out from under the boat, my son was waiting with another pole and hooked him again. He fought him for about 5 minutes until the gator decided he had enough and headed back into the marsh and broke that one off as well. I was trying to operate the boat and tie on a new treble hook while the gator was headed further up in the marsh. Our last option was my large snatch hook that I use to pull them off the bottom. It's very large and tied on to 1,000 lb flat rope, so it's very awkward to throw. My buddy grabbed it and threw out, and when I say threw it out, he threw the entire hook and rope. As luck would have it, the rope got caught in the marsh grass so he was able to grab it. He pulled it in and hooked on to the gator. We tied it off to the cleat of my boat and hit reverse, dragging the gator out of the grass. We fought him for a little bit, got him beside the boat and my buddy put a 10mm in the sweet spot. It was finally over and we all exchanged some high fives. We got back to the dock at 5am and began cleaning. We watched the sun rise Saturday while cleaning his trophy. Measured out at 8'2".
Spent Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning trying to get my youngest son on one. We located a good 9 footer in a small creek that didn't want to be messed with. He broke off 2 times and finally disappeared in the marsh. We were headed back to the dock and decided to hit the ole trusty redfish hole. 10 minutes and 3 reds later we were headed home. We'll be back down in 2 weeks to try it all over again.
Spent Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning trying to get my youngest son on one. We located a good 9 footer in a small creek that didn't want to be messed with. He broke off 2 times and finally disappeared in the marsh. We were headed back to the dock and decided to hit the ole trusty redfish hole. 10 minutes and 3 reds later we were headed home. We'll be back down in 2 weeks to try it all over again.
