Every year, the State of Alabama has a gator raffle. For $6 you buy a chance to win the opportunity to kill an alligator. It’s genius really. The game wardens have convinced random thrill seekers to pay for the chance to have the opportunity to do population control for them. This year Dad entered the competition for the elusive gator tag.
How, you might wonder, do you find out about something like a gator raffle. My dad is a dentist in a largely rural southern Alabama county. His patients are the salt of the earth. Anyone looking to be cultured in any and all things Southern would enjoy a day spent in his waiting room. One of these patients owns an airboat and convinced my dad to enter the raffle offering to take him if he won. Low and behold despite the low odds of only buying one ticket, Dad won!
The last time Dad suggested we do something involving an air boat and a swamp we went frog giggin’. I have since learned that to most of the world giggin’ seems to be an imaginary word. I won’t waste time with definitions here, but suffice it to say, frog giggin’ is one of the highlights of my not so boring life; right up there with horseback riding in a rain forest and swimming beneath a waterfall in the wilderness of Costa Rica.
The places the air boat took us on that frog giggin’ trip appeared to have been newly discovered. It was as if I was Lewis or Clark entering these parts of the delta and discovering them for the first time. No need to worry, I’m not an idiot just a romantic. The birds were hunting and fishing, bathing and playing. The frogs were performing a perfect symphony. The gators lurked and stared as equally amused by our presence as we were by theirs. Not one of these creatures seemed at all flummoxed by our presence in their abode.
The hours we spent in the remote delta were filled with a silence only nature can present. So when I was presented with the opportunity to spend another evening in the swamp hunting an alligator this time, I was not going to miss it.
In preparation, Dad dutifully attended his gator hunting class, and I bought a three day out of state large game hunting license. The original airboat captain fell through because his engine had blown up while taking a dying woman on an airboat ride. I would mock her dying wish if I had not experienced the captivating allure of a lonely swamp by air boat myself. Another air boat and captain were located, and with this initial setback overcome we were ready to go.
The weekend for our hunt arrived. Now the only thing standing in between us and our trophy was a looming tropical storm dragging itself along the entire gulf coast at a tediously slow pace dropping inches if not feet of water as it went with gusting winds making a trip into the delta tricky if not impossible by airboat.
However, we were motivated, and on a deadline. The gator hunting season closed Monday morning at 7 a.m. It was Friday evening. The possibility of the winds exceeding the speed of the boat thus stranding us in the delta was our main concern, though it would not be the first time we were stranded in a delta in an airboat. We watched the weather and stared out at the water until finally we determined Sunday evening as soon as the sun set, because legally you cannot hunt a gator until then, we would venture out on our quest.
At last we were putting our rain gear in the car and heading to the boat launch. The team consisted of my father – the great white hunter, Brian – the trusty good ole boy, the boat captain – the experienced gator hunter, his assistant, and myself – the designated photographer. Picture three guys in their late 30’s and a 50-something white haired man – every one a good ‘ole boy through and through, and a 25 year old wearing pearl earrings and J. Crew jeans toting a camera.
As soon as the boat hit the water, the captain shinned the spot light out into the delta and pairs of red eyes appeared everywhere. It did not take 20 minutes for us to find a gator to dispatch. Dispatching is apparently the technical gator hunting term for killing them – I guess it sounds more humane.
We approached the gator and he sank below the surface of the water. We pulled the boat just alongside of him and believe it or not the ferocious king of the swamp swam straight to the boat. As a matter of fact, he swam straight towards my feet.
If you are not familiar with airboats, they tend to sit low in the water. It was not too fanciful a leap for my imagination that this prey could have easily gotten into the boat and made me the hunted.
Dad got off his first shot with the crossbow, but missed. For his first shot at a gator completely submersed in water, he only missed by a mere centimeter at most - impressive. Being shot at did not make our new friend quite so friendly. I had lost site of him when our intrepid leader pointed the light at a stick in the water and said, “There he is doc, I’ll get closer and you can spear him.” Brian and I both exchanged a “Do you see the gator?” look and the next thing you know that stick was moving.
As Dad shoved the spear very forcefully down towards the ‘stick’, there was a brief moment when I thought he might follow the spear into the water. He would later admit he had shared my fear, not as much resistance as he anticipated. No one realized before the expertly executed spearing that the rope attached to the spear was not tied off, and it almost completely ran out before anyone grabbed it.
For those of you not educated in the methods of dispatching a gator, spearing him is only the first step. The rope previously mentioned is used to pull the now very angry gator right up to the edge of the very low to the water boat. There was some momentary concern this seriously pissed reptile was not the legal limit, so while it hissed and snapped with its intimidating jaws wide open and pointed in our direction we were going to have to measure it.
For the second time I thought we were going to lose a man overboard when our captain leaned so far over the front of the boat I truly believed he was a goner. I inquired of Brian who was going to go in after him or if we were letting the gator have him? I believe the unspoken consensus was that the gator would get a free meal.
Before too many moments passed, the captain had a hold of the gator’s tail and was holding him very close to the boat, pissed off, hissing, and mouth in the “I dare you to get closer position.” A noose was put on his upper jaw and a tape measure appeared. It was soon discovered he (or as the game warden would determine – she) was indeed long enough and we could dispatch it.
The dispatch involved Brian – who bravely volunteered to hold the noose - allowing a little slack so as to allow him, or rather her, to sink just below the surface. Now it was time for the ‘bang stick’. The bang stick is essentially a shot gun shell at the end of pole. You take this shell and smack the gator just behind the eyes in the soft spot. It causes instant death.
Allowing the gator to sink also means allowing him to back further away from the boat. Enter third opportunity for becoming gator bait. As Dad leaned out with the bang stick, I hoped that he would at least place his shot well before he fell in.
As the shot went off, a shower of water covered me despite being safely placed with all four good ole boys between me and the king of the swamp. I might have squealed but I promise no matter what they say it was only very slight and not by any means shrill.
Death was, as predicted, instantaneous. At least I hoped so, because before you knew it the captain was elbow deep in gator infested water reaching for the back foot of our haul while someone else grabbed his jaw and they hoisted him onto the boat.
Gators like snakes keep moving after death. The newly acquired sixth passenger on our boat was no exception. Our friend was missing a back claw and stank to high heaven. Dad’s expert spearing had pierced the gut, and the stench was exactly what you would think partially digested fish and other animals would smell like. His good claws kept scratching at the boat. His jaw was quickly tapped shut, so apparently I wasn’t the only one who feared the involuntary jaw movements. For the rest of the time in the boat, he seemed more subdued than dispatched.
Despite having our quarry in tow, we decided to take this opportunity – in a tropical storm mind you – to explore the delta a bit further and see if we could just see one bigger. We saw upwards of 100 alligators, and that is not a hunter’s tale. In one area, I called it the gator nursery, there were literally 30-40 baby alligators, not one more than 2 feet long. Maybe they thought there was strength in numbers; it conjured up images of a gator drive through for the larger of the swamps inhabitants to get a quick bite.
Until this point, there had not been much rain. But as we were exploring, the wind began to pick up and the rain began to fall, until we came to a stop in our return trip because the captain couldn’t see to drive. Alligators were everywhere. I have no problem whatsoever believing there are even more gators out there than the official count estimates.
I cannot report on much of the scenery as we struggled back across the swamp. The wind and rain picked up and each drop of water began to feel like a needle piercing my skin. I buried myself in my raincoat until the dock was in sight and the rain once again slacked.
When we got her back to check in, the game wardens took the necessary measurements and determined sex. Did you know that an alligator’s sex is determined by giving him or her what would resemble a prostate exam in a human? Neither did I, until I naively asked how they knew if it was a boy or a girl. The game warden grabbed a rubber glove and snapped it on like you seem them do in the movies before some uncomfortable scene, and shoved his fingers right up the poor dead animals rectum. He happily announced only seconds later that ‘he’ was actually a she. Any thought I may have ever had about how great a game warden’s job must be ended right there.
She was 8 feet long and 112 lbs. and still moving reflexively as we took our trophy pictures before we sent her off to be processed. No Dad wouldn’t put his head in her mouth, nor would he let me get a pair of alligator skin shoes.
I grew up being jealous of all my dad’s great hunting and fishing stories always wishing I had cool stories about snakes in boats and freezing to death in the swamps of Arkansas just to kill a duck. I always wished I had stories like that to tell him, but I realize now that instead of having stories to tell him I have become a part of some of his greatest stories (including the one about the 20 lbs. bass) and for that I will be eternally grateful.
All in all I believe entering the gator raffle is going to become a yearly tradition in our family. I just hope next time we don’t have to brave a tropical storm to get one.
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