Gator

“Rambo” and I met at a direct sales convention in Orlando through our host, who wanted both of us to experience the excitement and energy of the convention, and we did. As things will happen when people of a like-mind meet, Rambo and I just gravitated toward one another. We recognized the hunter/predator in each other and our conversations turned toward the woods and the beasts that dwell within.

We are both avid bowhunters and slayers of just about anything that will hold still long enough to sling an arrow at for the next gumbo. We traded stories for a few days before Rambo asked me if I had ever killed a gator and I said no, but it was on my menu to try out.

That’s when he told me that he had a few that he needed to kill for the state he lived in, as he was the alligator control agent for his area. I think I asked if he could use some help and he laughed and said that he is asked that a lot but people usually wilt when a big swamp lizard surfaces at the boat. I’m pretty sure I said something like “I don’t wilt” and he said that he would give me a call in a couple weeks.

I hardly knew him but for some reason, I believed that he would.

And he did.

It was July of 2014 when I got the call from Rambo about coming to help catch a few problem gators, with a couple being too big to catch alive. I got excited as I love chasing creatures that will fight for their lives to the extent that they will kill their adversary.

It’s a weird personality trait to desire to hunt dangerous game. I remember bowhunting a lion in Zambia and hearing a roar a mile away, then a little closer, and a little closer and my professional hunter saying, “That’s our lion and he’s letting all his competitors know that he is coming to feed and they better not be here when he gets here.”

And I got excited.

I wanted to let the air out of him so that he roared no more. But for some odd reason, while I watched him under the light of a full moon, I decided to let him live as he was injured and just trying to survive. He didn’t want to fight anyone, he was trying to bluff his enemies into running away. I’ve been there before, so I gave him another day.

Back to the gators!

I got to Rambo’s house late on a Thursday afternoon and met his super sweet wife, Angel, who had prepared a great supper before we left to hunt for the night. I remember her saying that she would have breakfast ready when we got back the next morning. The first thing I thought after driving eight hours was that I hoped we wouldn’t be out all night, and we were.

And thankfully Angel wasn’t kidding about breakfast!

We loaded the boat and headed for the first state park that had a gator harassing people at the campground and boat landing. Rambo wasn’t assigned to kill just any gator, but the one the Ranger identified as a problem.  Rambo told me the visitors thought it was cool to feed the alligators and when the alligators got exceptionally large, they treated the snacks as extortion. They would get to the point that they would bump the boats with their snout and stare at the fishermen until they threw them a sandwich.

The gators would also hang out at the park beaches where the kids swam to see if a snack was available there. Rambo told me a story about a little girl a few years earlier whose dog saw a gator closing in on the girl and it jumped on the gator. The gator ate the dog instead. Rambo killed the gator a few days later.

We spent the first night trying to spotlight the target gator but had no luck seeing him. Male gators have a tendency to move around during breeding season in search of a one-night stand. So, they could be in the park one day and in a beaver pond a mile away the next night seducing a future belly purse or better yet, a pair of cowboy boots…if you get my drift?

The next day, after a great breakfast and a two-hour nap, we worked most of the day replacing the bearings in the boat trailer that happened to burn out the night before on the way to the park. We left the boat and trailer at the park as we decided to hunt the same gator again.

Before we got back to the park, Rambo got a call from another Ranger saying he had a problem gator harassing kids on the park beach the day before. Rambo said we should hang a bait on the beach and check it the next morning before I had to leave.

Who was I to deny him?

This time we hunted for the sneaky lizard until about 1:00 A.M. when a big set of eyes surfaced about 200 yards from us and 30 yards from the campground. Rambo said, “I’m going to run the trolling motor up close enough to take a good look at him and if that’s our boy we will make a plan.” We eased up to about 50 yards and Rambo said, “Take the binoculars and look at the distance between his eyes and the tip of his nose.” I said, “It’s close to a foot.” He said, “That’s our gator. You run the trolling motor and get me as close as you can to him and be quiet about it. He will only give me one cast.”

For those who don’t know, most gators Rambo kills are caught on a rod and reel with 200-pound test line and a large weighted treble hook that will draw blood from your finger when you touch the points, as I did and it did.

Rambo made a perfect cast over the big gator’s front shoulder from about 15 yards. He reeled up fast and set the hook and the fight was on! The gator pulled the boat around and began plowing the lake with us. Rambo takes this stuff extremely seriously and starts to “Dr. Jekyll” on me by yelling instructions as if I’m the gator guy.

So, I yelled back!

We both laughed as that’s what bad asses do when they aren’t sure how bad of an ass they really are…Ha!

The gator eventually quit running swim sprints and “sullied up”. That means that he was locked down on the bottom and wasn’t going to move unless he was made to, as the lactic acid had locked most of his muscles down. The only problem we had was that he did it under a giant dead oak tree in the lake, and we had to try to drag him out.

Eventually, the line broke and we sat in the boat both pissed and tired. It was about 2:00 A.M. and we needed sleep, so it was back to the landing to load the boat and head home. I don’t think either of us said much on the way.

When we got to Rambo’s house it was 3:30 A.M., and he told me to take a shower and get some sleep as we would get up about three hours later to check the bait on the beach since it was only 30 minutes away.

Somewhere in the middle of a great dream about my wife, I hear Rambo yelling, “Steve, get up and hurry…we’ve got a big gator on the hook!” I thought, please be kidding, I’m dead. Rambo yelled again, “Come on man, hurry, we’ve gotta go! I got you some coffee for the road!”

We fly down a dirt road for about 5 miles when we come up on a pickup truck parked beside the road. Rambo said, “Remember Rooster from the direct sales company, he checked the bait an hour ago for me and said the gator was on the hook!” When we pulled up, I said, “Hey Rooster, we got a good one on?” “Yessiree!” he said.

Rooster has to be part Cajun, as he speaks a dialect that most could never interpret, but in growing up in south Louisiana I know the language well. I grew up in the heart of Cajun country and loved the culture. Rooster was a special guy who loved catching gators and loved seeing guys like me in the arena. He lived about a mile from the bait and went by to check it on the way to work.

He was excited!

We got down to the beach, and Rambo walked over to the steel fence post that we had driven about three feet into the sand the day before. We had tied a thousand-pound test line to the base of the post and stabbed a rotten chicken quarter on a shark hook attached to the end of about a hundred feet of line. Rambo drove a cane pole into the bottom of the lake at an angle where the chicken bait hung about two feet above the water, twenty feet from the beach.

The higher the bait is from the water, the bigger the gator has to be to eat it. And gators can smell rotten chicken two miles down wind, sort of like me and fried chicken.

Now, get a feel of what we were steppin in.

There was an eerie dense fog over the lake and you could only see about 30 yards. There was no wind and it was already humid and hot at first light. And for some reason, I was nervous. I wanted to blame it on the coffee, but my gut was churning big time.

Rambo grabbed the line and started to pull on it, and nothing happened. Rooster said, “He done sullied up.” Rambo said, “Yep, but I want to see him, so I’m gonna pull on superman’s cape and see how bad he is!” Rambo pulled till the gator rose to the surface and began to roll. Rambo said that he was a good one but not a giant and I began to relax. Rooster said, “Pull him up again so we can take a better look.” This time his whole head rose out of the lake and Rooster said,” He’s bigger than you think.” Rambo said, “He sure is!” Rooster laughed and said, “We don’t catch no babies, dat’s a man!”

My stomach rolled every time the gator rolled. I knew they were setting me up for entertainment, so I was determined to hold my ground, since I didn’t have any groceries in my stomach to hold on to. I was dumb enough to bring a video camera and handed it to Rooster to video. He kept asking me how to run the camera and I told him everything was set, just aim it at the gator. Rambo went to retrieve his pole snare from the truck while Rooster fumbled with the camera and I prayed I wouldn’t look like the queasy fool I felt like.

Rambo told me to grab the line and pull the gator closer to the beach so he could get the snare around it’s snout. At first, the gator fought the line and me as hard as he could but I had the advantage of firm ground and he was swimming.  This is when Rooster said, “Don’t let the line wrap around your hand or he will drag you in the lake with him.” I yelled, “I’ll just go with him!” And Rooster yelled back, “You sho nuff will!”

I got the line away from me right then, as I wasn’t gonna let my mouth overload my ass. I fought the gator till he locked down again and dug his feet into the bottom. But now, his head was out of the water and Rambo was able to get the cable in his mouth and over the top of his snout. That’s when Rambo “Dr. Jekylled” again and yelled, “Let’s pull him up on the beach as far as he will come and kill him before he hurts one of us!” I started getting queasy again, as we pulled the big gator’s body two-thirds of the way out of the water.

I’m talking over 500 pounds big!

Rambo handed me his gator pistol, a judge with a six shot 410 shell in it, and said, “I will hold his head tight with the snare, you walk up and shoot him in the back of the head where his spine connects. Look for the V in the back of his head.” I eased up to the gator and heard Rambo telling me to hurry while the gator was exhausted, don’t let him rest, kill him now.

I got within a few feet and looked down to see the gator’s big greenish gray reptile eyes looking straight at me. When I moved, his eyes followed me. I told Rambo, this sucker is gonna bite me sure enough, you can’t hold him! He’s watching everything I do!

Rambo used the best redneck killin’ bait ever! He yelled, “You chicken shit, I said kill him now!”

And I did!

I walked over in a testosterone overload and stuck the barrel to the back of his head and pulled the trigger. He dropped in his tracks and I wet my pants! Just kidding, but he did drop in his tracks.

Rooster said, “He ain’t goin’ no where now.” I laughed with Rambo and we admired my first alligator and probably Rambo’s thousandth, eleven-foot-long and over 500 pounds heavy.

I was elated!

And just think, I’m one of His favorites!

 

THOUGHTS OF THE HUNTER KIND:

I have recognized over my hunting career that fear is either defeated and ignored or debilitating. There is no “in between”. What possesses men to chase creatures that also kill? Got me, but I’m one of them. I have met and talked to many bowhunters and professional hunters in Africa who all struggle with the same obstacle. Some overcome and kill the predator and some are killed by the predator. I find myself praying, “Lord, give me direction quick, steady my heart, and show me how to kill this beast!” I wonder if David did the same thing?

PRAYER OF THE HUNTER KIND:

Jeremiah 9: 23-24 “But let the one who boasts, boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the Lord….”

Lord, I know that you have rescued me from myself all too often and I give you all the glory; as I am one who will boast about myself while knowing it is Your Spirit guiding me who had killed the beast.