Gnats swarmed my face in a thunderstorm of activity, their aggravating presence dwarfed only by the mosquitoes buzzing my head in a crown-like pattern. To my left an insect the size of a Sacagawea dollar coin crept closer and closer, its pinchers ready and seemingly waiting to pierce and cut my flesh. Faced with such hardship I couldn’t help but voice the first complaint of the hunt.
“Man if the motel’s this bad you know we’re just gonna get eaten alive out there in the swamp.”
My friend and hunting partner Joel O’Shoney couldn’t help but agree.
“I know. I think I’m down a pint of blood from the mosquitoes in the bathroom alone.”
Joel and I were in Palacios, Texas for an alligator hunt on the neighboring Mad Island Wildlife Refuge and while most of the hunters we’d meet were after a monster sized swamp dragon, we had come for something a little different. We were after wallets and purses. Our rather unique hunting plan had come about after meeting Richard Sanders of Walden & Bork at a hunting expo in Dallas the year before.
Walden & Bork transforms game hides into beautifully crafted goods such as purses, wallets, luggage, and belts. When I told Richard about my upcoming alligator hunt he offered to turn any skins I might acquire into a purse for my wife for a fair price. Upon hearing my interest his only advice on the matter was, “Get a small alligator, between six and eight foot long. That’s the best sized animal to turn into leather.”
Taking an alligator of a certain size would be difficult as the preferred method of hunting them in Texas is by suspending a baited hook above the water. Utilizing this method an alligator is caught when it completely swallows the bait, taking the hook into its stomach. By pulling the attached rope the hunter is able to bring the animal close enough to the boat to safely dispatch it with a shotgun or handgun. While there are certain things a hunter can do to increase the odds of getting a certain sized alligator (example: changing the height of the baited hook) there are certainly no guarantees. For this reason Joel and I were going to bow hunt.
After sitting through a brief orientation at the refuge headquarters, Joel and I loaded up our small twelve foot John boat and headed into the swamp. Consisting of 7,200 acres of brackish marsh land and flat coastal prairie Mad...
Island Wildlife Refuge is a haven for ducks, sandhill cranes, feral hogs, and alligator. It’s also a haven for mosquitoes, deer flies, ticks, and leeches, all of which we encountered through our winding travel through a semi-stagnant canal to a small black lake in the center of the refuge. It was there that we would turn our boat into a blind by anchoring it in a nest of cattails and covering it with camo netting.
In order to attract our quarry we brought two five gallon buckets of rotted, sun-ripened cow spleen, lungs, and blood. By the flip of a coin I became the designated “chummer” and spent a good portion of the afternoon flinging bloody cow intestines into the water with the hopes of attracting alligators. With a stiff wind blowing in the right direction it didn’t take long for a few reptiles to catch the scent.
“I see a head,” Joel whispered, pointing before the boat.
Seventy-five yards ahead of us a bulbous black head cut a narrow wake through the water. The alligator was definitely interested in our bait but failed to come within bow range. This series of events repeated itself throughout the afternoon. An alligator would come to the end of our chum line, swim through it a few times, then disappear beneath the black water.
After three hours in the sweltering heat, smelling rotted cow flesh we decided to try another spot. We packed up our alligator blind, secured our bows, and began the long haul back to the check station. We had just exited the lake and entered the first canal when we saw two hunters in kayaks struggling with a rope. I immediately recognized them as the only father/daughter hunters from the morning’s registration. After waving us over the father, Michael Henderson, explained that he and his daughter Hillary had an alligator on the end of their line but were a little apprehensive about pulling it up next to their kayaks.
“This is our first gator hunt,” Michael confessed.
Yeah, whatever’s on the other end of this line feels pretty heavy,” Hillary interrupted. “And it’s probably not real happy...
either.”
Looking at the tiny kayak sitting just above the surface of the water I didn’t blame Hillary for being nervous. I was getting nervous wondering what was on the other end of the line too and I had successfully taken alligators off the refuge this way twice before. Nevertheless, Joel and I offered to help. With the rope still in her hand Hillary climbed into my boat while her father back paddled a safe distance away
“Now what do I do?” Hillary asked.
You can either pull the gator out of the water or shoot it,” I responded.
“I think I’ll pull,” Hillary answered slowly pulling the rope hand over hand from the water. Without warning a set of black and yellow jaws boiled from the marsh. In a flash, Hillary let go of the rope and fell to the floor of the boat.
“I think I’ll shoot,” she immediately exclaimed. “You can pull the rope!”
I took the rope in my hand while Hillary readied her shotgun.
“When he breaks the surface shoot him in the back of the head,” I instructed. “Just behind the eye sockets.”
Hillary nodded in agreement and motioned for me to pull.
I did and just as before the water exploded upward as a huge head sprung from the canal. I pulled the rope taunt trying to keep the alligator’s head above water. Hillary took careful aim and fired. The Remington 12 gauge slug slammed through the reptile’s head with a clap of thunder. I let go of the rope and watched as the still contorting animal sunk beneath the water and out of sight. Hillary pumped another round into the chamber and waited. The limp rope hanging on the side of the boat told me there was no need for another shot. I pulled the alligator to the surface, grabbed its jaws tight and watched as Hillary wrapped them shut with duct tape.
From what we could see of it in the water the alligator was massive; well over 10 feet in length. Hillary and her father were thrilled to death. The only problem with their newly acquired trophy-sized alligator was getting it in the boat. Even with four people struggling, it was still impossible to get the animal out of the water.
“Someone’s gonna have to get in the water and push this thing from below,” Joel announced, turning his gaze my way. “And you already smell like cow guts.”
...
“You do kind of smell,” Hillary playfully concurred.
With very little self-respect left I eased myself over the side of the boat and into the tepid canal water. After several attempts we finally got the huge reptile into the boat. A quick look at the tape revealed that Hillary’s monster was eleven foot eight inches long, an awesome first alligator in anyone’s book.
Although Joel and I ended the day without alligators we were more than happy to leave the refuge knowing we had helped a young hunter and her father with their first alligator hunt.