Basic Gator Hunting Gear and Strategies

This week I will be taking delivery on a new harpoon from Central Florida Trophy Hunts. Their combo package includes a stainless steel base, driver, two Muzzy harpoon points, 100 feet of rope and two Styrofoam buoys. For 120 bucks plus shipping, it ain’t too bad. Just gonna have to run to ACE to get a dowel to mount it on. Shy of a boat, this will complete my crusade for gator hunting gear. But once you have all the gear, boats are easy to come by.

For those of you raised on Swamp People who believe gator hunting is as easy as shooting a gator in the head with a .22 while it chokes on a hooked chicken thigh, know Florida does not allow the use of firearms. Nor baited hooks – baited pegs, yes.

To wit, there are numerous tactics hunters use to land gators, most of which are dependent on the elements of the Happy Hunting Grounds. Some folks, especially those who hunt shallow, weedy areas, prefer a run-and-gun style. They spotlight red eyes and floor it to that location and try to spear or arrow the gator. Or track their bubbles and pitch snatch lines provided the vegetation isn't so thick that it hangs hooks.

For some who hunt large rivers and open waters, using baited lines to chum gators is their preferred tactic. They are not allowed to set lines from shore – and catch those “Tree Shakers.” Baited lines must be hand-held or secured to a boat. Plus, no hooks may be used; only 2-inch wooden pegs wedged into the bait and thrown in the vicinity of a gator or in a likely location. Common baits are beef lung and rotten chicken and are pretty repulsive. The gator swallows the bait and the Tug-O-War begins until it is hit with snatch hooks or harpoons.

Still others take the silent approach, spotlighting gators from a distance and stalking within range with minimal light and by paddle or trolling motor. If the gator sounds, an anchor is eased over. Most times the gator will not travel far. When the gator is sighted again within range, the snatch line is cast over the beast and the fight is on. Hunters must be quiet not to kick equipment and beer cans around the vessel as this noise easily spooks the gators.

I cannot speak much more than this about baits and harpooning and bows and arrows; I’ve never tried these methods. We’ve relied on this final model, and it is the equipment needed for this that I would like to discuss.

Let’s start with lights. Q-Beams are near-essential tools for the gator hunter to spot game at long distances. Not surprisingly, different hunters disagree on how much a spotlight should be used; some feel if you keep it in their eyes, it keeps a lizard from submerging. Others feel you should douse the light and sneak in the dark. I agree with the latter camp only because I’ve not witnessed an effective execution of the former strategy.

But, you must still see where you are throwing. We use low wattage headlamps. It can be difficult for others in the boat to see the game, but for the person wearing the lamp about to cast a line, the light is just enough to shine those eyes.

Which brings us to the pitch rods. Last year Harris introduced a new strategy. On previous hunts with him, he used two stout rods with large treble hooks. The muscle was there, but the casting range was limited and inaccurate. Plus, large three-pointed hooks slinging out of the boat made everyone a little antsy. So, last year he decided to bring a smaller rod with lighter line that cast farther. We were hunting open water, more or less, so we could quickly maneuver close to put more lines in him without much fear of the gator breaking us off. Worked twice in the night.

Dad visited Bridgemaster Fishing Products in Lake Wales to find a gator set-up for my birthday. On the advice of a seasoned hunter, he bought a 7-foot E-Class Roddy Gator Tail with an Okuma Avenger and 150 yards of 80lb. Tuf-Line. The gentleman also recommended rigging a line with three treble hooks and a weight on the end. Previously we had just used a weighted hook, but I can see the benefits of adding a couple more. (I do fear my knot-tying skills for this operation. I’m usually surprised when I tie my shoe and don’t have a finger wrapped in the bow. It's why I wear sandals.) After a gator has been hooked, we try to put another line in him. It's important that people work together because lines will tangle and snap in the frenzy.

Once you’ve spotted a gator and put a line or three in him, the next step is the harpoon. Gators roll up and down lines like yo-yos when boat side. That harpoon line is insurance and makes the situation more manageable. The one I’ve purchased – and there are numerous companies that sell them – is a straightforward design. A harpoon tip is rigged to rope and a float. This is then placed on a driver. The hunter leans into a strong jab to get under that tough hide. The tip comes off the pole and the floats are free to go overboard if the gator takes off. Now comes the dangerous part - getting the gator boatside and subdued.

I’ve written about my bangstick before, so I won’t repeat myself today. The goal is to send the slug in a spot directly between the eyes and two to three inches behind and angled towards the brain for a humane kill. It must only be used when the gator is a few inches below the water and only when the gator is secured to a restraining line as described above.


This typically knocks the wind from their sails, but gators are dangerous critters with small brains. It’s prudent to wrap their snouts - very carefully - with electrical or duct tape. Then, sever the spine behind the skull. Their eyes should shut after giving up the ghost.

As I noted earlier, this is the basic manner in which I have gator hunted. And I will confess, I've never personally dealt with a true dinosaur. How each captain or guide or hunter performs is dependent on their experience, and I welcome any advice should one want to share it. Gator hunting, for us, has been a team sport and very enjoyable as long as everyone is on the same page.

One last thought if you’re the captain of the vessel. Make sure you have all your running lights, throw cushions, flares, and life jackets on board. The Man is relentless. A trapper’s agent license is required of all those who aid in the capture of a gator and can be purchased online and at the local Wal-Mart or sporting goods store.

(FYI: For this year, tags have been applied for and distributed. The first phase begins today. The new hunting hours are 5pm to 10am each day of the 11-week season)

Covert Scouting Cameras

Just wanted to give a quick plug for Covert Scouting Cameras. As I noted in my last Trail Camera Pics post, my Covert had developed a few issues. The door to the battery case broke. The on-off switch snapped. And the last few pictures were over-exposed.

I wasn’t all that angry because it endured a torture test of varying, year-long Florida weather conditions. It still should have held up, but I really liked the quality of pictures I was getting, the system was easy to use, and the battery life was superb. I wasn't ready to jump ship. A quick e-mail to the company with my concerns was all it took to secure a warranty number and instructions to send it back.

I quickly obliged.

10 days later, sitting on my doorstep, was a brand-new in-the-box camera. Not only that, it was the next model up, the Covert Extreme. All it cost was seven dollars in shipping. I was terribly pleased with this level of customer service.

Covert cameras have an underground, cult following that is well-deserved. You see more of other brands in ads and magazines, but I get alot of praise from others when I mention Coverts in my posts. I've even won a few converts.

The Extreme and my previous version different in very user-friendly ways. Instead of a plug-in control system in the last model, the Extreme has all the controls on the inside of the unit, but the basic attraction of its compact size remains intact. The battery housing is different with 8 AA’s fitting snug into the unit without a weak door. The company claims the Extreme has a 1.2 second trigger time. There are all kinds of settings from photo bursts to videos, and this version is compatible with 8GB SD cards - an upgrade, as well. In addition, the camera is camo-ed in the snazzy Mossy Oak Bottomland finish.

The new camera should be deployed within the next week in South Florida. I look forward to sharing the results with you.

If you have not already, check out Covert Scouting Cameras.

Cuda Dreams, Mullet Reality - East Coast Bowfishing

The plan was easy enough – arrow a barracuda. Maybe not the smartest plan in the world but a challenge that no one I know has attempted. The idea was to visit a buoy south of Ft. Pierce Inlet where local fisherman stop to sabiki sardines and threadfins for the more serious business of offshore fishing. It is also here where the barracuda lounge around, eating at leisure on the hapless bait and the foraging bonito, jacks and assortment of other piscine predators there to fill their stomachs, as well. It’s 25-30 feet deep here, but if there’s not a lot of boat traffic, the cuda will tread near the surface, tail fins often poking out of the water. Over the years we’ve seen real leviathans, and I wanted to stick one badly.

But apparently Tuesday, August 2nd was a holiday I was unaware of as there was a merry band of boaters on the water. 6 or 7 boats peddled around the buoy trying to fill their livewells. Another 3 or 4 boats were on a plane in that direction. This did not bode well for the prospects of lazy barracuda and easy targets.

We could have maneuvered our way into the mix, but I was downright hostile to the idea. One, I don’t like people stuck all up in my beeswax. There’s every reason to believe I was the first ever who’d visited the buoy with a bow and arrow. Fishermen are a curious bunch, and I didn’t care to repeatedly explain myself. The activity is perfectly legal, but you never know when an ignorant angler may call the law and have to deal with that hassle.

Next, barracuda have this terrible habit of leaping out of the water when hooked by standard fishing tackle. There may be Minnesota-Americans reading this who don’t have a clear concept of what a barracuda is – once it leaves the water, it is a wayward rocket with teeth that clips serious holes into whatever it hits. Occasionally you’ll read stories of one jumping randomly in a boat and chewing up its crew, but more often than not, it’s a hooked fish darting into the cockpit that tears people up. So arrowing one amidst a bunch of boats had the potential for a sad, litigious ending.

Dad and I tossed out a couple spoons and trolled the area for mackerel, without luck, until the boats cleared away. Immediately I could tell the fish were spooked. They were down deep in the crystal water and showed no signs of rising. Oh, we saw plenty – schools in fact, some fish that’d probably hit the 30 pound mark. I did tag one in the side with an arrow - I was more surprised by it than he was - but at the depth he was cruising, the arrow harmlessly bounced off and he sped away.

So we pulled out the SWAT tactics. Dad would cast a surface plug and retrieved it as fast as he could. Cuda love chasing fast-moving lures. And they did, but still stayed deep. The next trick was to rig up the sabikis and try to lure the barracuda alongside the boat with fresh bait. For those of you who don’t know, a sabiki rigs is a gangline of five to six small gold hooks with little white “wings” that you attach a weight to and jig through schools of bait. The baitfish attack the miniscule lures, and it’s a pretty effective manner of filling a livewell with frisky baits. We had one sabiki rig. On the first cast, I hooked into four or five scaled sardines.

Annnnddddd, the line broke sending the rig and baitfish into the Locker.

I was flabbergasted as the clown music was now blaring loudly. Foolishly I expected easy and planned accordingly. This cuda thing just wasn’t going to work out today and the August heat was cranking up. Dad mentioned a grassflat in the Indian River he had fished the previous day filled with mullet. Mullet are on the other end of the spectrum of dangerous game, but I am sure in the annals of African safaris, some lion hunter frustrated with his ill-fated pursuit, soothed his irritations on a herd of impala or dik-dik. So, we left the blue of the Atlantic to head to emerald green of the Intercoastal.

Dad was right. There were plenty of mullet. Also stingrays.

I’m on the fence about stingrays. They are tailor-made for bowfishing. But, what to do with them? Their only real purpose on Earth is to feed sharks, but that still is not enough reason to shoot one. And these were big rays – 30-40 pound rays. I’ve caught enough on rod and reel to know that, unless I brained the fish, it would be a struggle to get it to the boat with what little line I had in the AMS. This is in extreme violation of the fisherman’s affliction with reeling in the Big Catch, but I could log no ethical reason to pop these slow-moving flat fish. Then again, I didn’t have much reason to shoot barracuda either. Silly how ethics works sometimes.

The other frustrating fish were the snook. It is highly illegal – as in, BBQ a bald eagle illegal – to spear snook. And it was out of season. And most of them we saw were over slot size. But linesider after linesider drifted by the boat as I perched near the center console awaiting passing schools of mullet. They’d given me the electric chair had I pegged the 20-pounder that hung off the transom, eying me, almost Triple Dog Daring me to shoot.

Mullet it would be. I shot three in about 200 shots. Two were intentionally shot; the smallest I flock-shot. So, I didn’t bag the biggest fish in the seas.

But unlike stingrays and cuda, mullet do nicely translate into this:

Summer Hog Hunting

Like singing in the shower, cutting into a herd of hogs with an AR-15 is an unbridled joy. I could have popped the first one easy enough, but Travis was not at a vantage point where he could see the 100 pound sow. Plus, he was in front of my left shoulder just enough that it would have scared me – and certainly him – if I’d launched a round or three at the black pig without him aware of the situation. As we corrected our position, the sow caught our movements and thrashed into a head of willows and deep aquatic grass.

That’s when her herd of 40-50 pound progeny started piling out of the Tall Grass. They were perfect BBQ hogs. The shots would have been fleeting, but, again, with an AR-15 the temptation to go Predator-era Jesse Ventura on them was pretty high. But, I’ve calmed myself in recent years, and believe in the economy of a bullet. The group settled under those willows as we recomposed ourselves and crept in for a shot. This was pure luck; the circumstances of us even being there too convoluted to really comprehend.

The week before we had been at the ranch hanging stands, filling feeders, and preparing for bow season. It was a fine time for the battery in my truck to die. We had to call the ranch manager to tow us out of the woods, humiliated, but grateful, that his Ford Ranger was able to coax my Dodge Mega Cab over ditches and down the trails back to the ranch shed. There, the ranch manager loaned me a tractor battery so I could drive home. We agreed to bring it back at the earliest possible time and thanked him profusely for saving our rears.

We returned the next Tuesday evening to deliver the battery. I had also become concerned with the working conditions of my trail camera, so we decided we’d slip in and grab it before calling it a day. On the path back to the truck, we wandered across the hogs. It’s important to carry a rifle with you in the working hours of summer, especially when pigs are around.

Summer hog hunting is typically an early morning or last light affair. Sure, I’ve rambled across plenty in the heat of noon while driving properties or hanging stands, but by and large, the gloaming of the day is prime time. Exceptions do arise.

The hogs were out feeding well before last light, around 6pm. The caveat was the weather. A tropical wave had buffeted the property with light rain before our arrival which had significantly cooled the area. The conditions were still overcast, and for a Florida July, I’d call it comfortable. In our limited roaming, we saw several deer and a couple hens.

Florida hogs emerge from their swampy hideouts after a rain shower or thunderstorm to munch on freshly-wet green grass. The problem is, down here everything is green during the summer, so it is important to stay mobile. If it’s a blistering 95, that makes hunting awfully unrewarding. So maybe it’s as much me liking to hunt after a rain as much as hogs prefer to eat after one that makes this summer hunting successful. Either way, it is savvy practice to stay on alert during these times, whether you are out stalking or out bumbling.

You could always guard a feeder, but stand hunting in the summer for hogs doesn’t do much for me. The cat’s meow is to park your truck under a shade tree with the A/C and radio humming and glass cow pastures and cutovers, then slip out and stalk up to them. Hogs are the perfect southern animal on which to hone your stalking skills.

What is also nice about summer hog hunting is the lack of hunting pressure. While we were on a private ranch, it gets pretty heavy traffic from September through April, and not all of the guests are as single-minded about deer or turkey as I tend to be. During this time, too, the ranch hands do a fair amount of dog hunting and trapping. This all relaxes in the summer, as do the hogs. Even drawing on experiences from other properties that have not endured the hard-core hog obliteration, the pigs just seem more comfortable in the summer. Wish I could quantify that beyond anecdote, but I can’t.

It’s too bad Florida doesn’t open more public lands to summer hog hunts. Swiftmud is currently analyzing their lands to see which would be suitable for hunting. They’ve been amenable to hog hunts. It’s something to investigate. And those of you on deer leases who don’t hog hunt are missing a fine offseason reprieve.

Wild hogs are also a delightful quarry on which to employ some of those neglected arms in the back of the gun locker. Summer hog hunting is the perfect opportunity to pull out that old lever action or handgun. Or Grandpa’s old military rifles. Perhaps try open sights for once in your life. Any fast-handling firearm is perfect for sneaking up on a sounder.

To wit, the AR-15. Those hogs were bayed in the willows grunting and wheezing. Probably not a great idea to get any closer, but we were game.

From the corner of my eye, I caught what I thought was a boar lope across the road. I swung and fired once, rolling the 150lb sow head over heels.

Just straight up Summer Luck.

Great White Shark off Sebastian Inlet, FL

OK, this is month-old news, but I figured I'd post it anyway - we are celebrating Shark Week. And I did just spend the last six days enjoying the beautiful beaches and warm waters of Cocoa and Vero, 30 minutes to the north and south, respectively, of Sebastian Inlet.

This diver was supposedly hunting in 150-170 feet of water. The big fish he is shooting at are amberjacks.

It's a pretty cool video and a strong reminder of why I don't spearfish. (Skip to the 3-minute mark to see the shark.)