Lizard Hunting

[5xTippett]

My twin daughters and I got invited down to the coast to hunt with my cousin on some land he purchased this past spring.  Halliburton had other plans so Claibourne and I loaded up the car after lunch yesterday and headed Southeast.  We sat in a deer stand yesterday afternoon and didn't see squat.  We didn't hunt deer this morning.  We ate lunch and went back to have at it again.  This time we were going after a little something different.  My cousin had 18 alligator tags and he had 12 left.  A landowner with tags can hunt them out of a boat or stalking them on their property.  Claibourne and I elected to walk the dikes around the rice fields.  We would walk around the fields and I would glass the ditches running through the fields.  We saw one little one about 3 feet long which was too small to shoot.  They have to be 4 feet long to be legal.   We heard something splash off the dike.  It sounded like somebody threw a concrete block in the water so I knew it was a keeper.  We eased up a few feet and I told Claibourne to sit down and get ready.  I knew it hadn't seen us so I didn't think it was spooked.  Sure enough it popped up and she drilled it.  We had to get my cousin and paddle down the canal to retrieve it.  It was 7'4".  I was a proud daddy and that was one thrilled daughter.

[Al]

If I hadn't read the story first I would have thought that was a picture of you and your daughter but then realized it was an alligator.

Good for you and your daughter. You are bringing them up right.

What are you going to do with the hide and tail meat.  I've had alligator before and it is delicious.

[5xTippett]

I skinned it out and we have the tail meat.  We left the jaw meat with my cousin.  We stopped at the taxidermist on the way home and I am going to get the head mounted for her.  I tried to call you on the way home tonight, Albert!  Quit screening your calls!

[overbrook]

Good job Nub!  Last time I was in the back of the pond I saw what looked to be a big wallow so we may have another big one hiding back there.   

Gators taste like chikin 

[tomato can]

Wow that is impressive.

[DRIFTS]

Way cool. Think I'll stick with musky, looks safer 

[sanjuanwormhatch]

I tagged a gator once.  Every needs to do it at least once in their life. 

[Trout Maharishi]

Too bad you didn't get a few beavers while you were at it.

[greg]

Curious what did you shoot it with? Nice gator.

[Trout Maharishi]

Had to be an AR-15, that's the weapon everyone and everything gets shot with now days according to the media

[5xTippett]

She shot it with my 7 X 57 (7mm Mauser).  I was carrying her .243.  I will break her of that.  She's got her own rifle and she can leave mine the heck alone.

TM, the gator was in the duck pond we're going to shoot over Thanksgiving.  She might of been eating some of your feathers!  She won't now. -0-  I know it is a she because we had to sex the thing for the wildlife department.  Sexing an alligator is a whole different  story and words fail me.

[Dougfish]

You and your badass daughter!  y;

[Big J]

She shot it with my 7 X 57 (7mm Mauser).  I was carrying her .243.  I will break her of that.  She's got her own rifle and she can leave mine the heck alone.

TM, the gator was in the duck pond we're going to shoot over Thanksgiving.  She might of been eating some of your feathers!  She won't now. -0-  I know it is a she because we had to sex the thing for the wildlife department.  Sexing an alligator is a whole different  story and words fail me.

Haha, I saw a dirty jobs episode where he worked at an alligator farm and he wasn't thrilled with the sexing of an alligator.

Nice gator she got.

[The Dude]

How are the rules different for nuisance gators versus hunting permits?  I know for public hunts, you have to hunt from a boat (which means no rifles), and you have to be anchored to the gator before you can dispatch it (fishing rod, bow fishing, harpoon, etc).  Taking nuisance gators seems like a much more fun way to do it than by the hunters regs.

[5xTippett]

On private property the landowner applies to the wildlife department and they issue you tags.  They recommend you take a certain amount of certain sizes.  In other words they recommend he only take 2 over 8 feet.  So far he hasn't killed any over 8 feet.  You can just shoot them without being anchored to them like you have to with the public tags.   They have a lottery system on tags for public property.  The rules on how you can take gators for the public tags are different. The man who watches over the property is a retired game warden, and his son is a game warden, and he handled all of the paper work.  We had to tag this one and fill out all kind of paper work on how it was killed, size, sex, rifle, etc.  This kind of hunting reminded me of stalking deer and it was fun as the dickens.  The season on private property is from the middle of September to the middle of May.  I would have liked to kill one, but I was much happier with my daughter having killed one, especially the way she did it.