I'm a size 9 if any knows the taxidermist turned cobbler.

he looks delicious

Some years ago 4 ten year old boys spotted an eleven footer in a drainage ditch in town. The game warden suggested that the next gator they captured really didn’t need to be tied to every tree in the yard.

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Originally posted by cslinger:
Gator is actually pretty good. It does sort of a chicken taste but much chewier. It’s Good Fried.

+1

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Originally posted by lastmanstanding:
My bet would be they could cut that gator loose out in the glades and he'd never find his way back to suburbia or would want to.

I'm not sure where HRK lives, but I lived in Tampa and Merritt Island. Like RichardC said, we were up to our ass in gators. You could fill a couple semi trailers every day with gators, drive it down to the 'Glades and never run short of work. Seriously. They're in every drainage ditch and retention pond. Gator's fine eating, though, and one that would likely end up eating someone's kid is as good a candidate as you can find.

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Originally posted by Sportshooter:
Some years ago 4 ten year old boys spotted an eleven footer in a drainage ditch in town. The game warden suggested that the next gator they captured really didn’t need to be tied to every tree in the yard.

I can see it now

Call "Pickle Wheat" from Swamp People!

The Blackwater River State Forest near Milton, FL was used by a fox "hunting" (really, just listening to dogs chase fox all night) group. But the dogs started disappearing. One hunter had a radio collar on his favorite when it went missing. Tracked it to a small sinkhole in a spring creek. There was a trail across the creek and the gator just listened for the dinner bell. They called the local gator hunter, a real-life backwoods snaggle-tooth Crocodile Dundee. He hooked the 11' gator with a chicken. When he and his meth-mouth kin couldn't drag him out, he jumped in the sinkhole with the gator and got another rope on him out so they could shoot him. This gator had his ass hanging out of the 8' bed when they took his picture.

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Originally posted by HayesGreener:

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Originally posted by Hound Dog:

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Originally posted by lastmanstanding:
Beautiful, healthy looking specimen he is.

Yeah, that is a BEAUTIFUL animal.

I would probably think differently, though, if that were my driveway. . .

'Gator wrangling is one of those things I "know" I could do, though I have no training or experience (like landing the plane after the pilot(s) have a heart attack, defusing a nuclear bomb, etc.). I mean, how hard can it be?

Capturing gators was required training at the police academy in Florida years ago before they started issuing trapping licenses.

We were recruiting experienced officers heavily. I was interviewing applicants from up north who wanted to know what parts of the comparative compliance academy they would have to attend. Oh, you have to take Florida law, firearms, pursuit driving, and alligator capture. Some did not believe me right up to the point when the game warden pulled up with a gator in his truck, dragged it out, and says, "there he is boys, get him"..Some of those guys moved back to Michigan and Ohio....

I've had to deal with dogs, cats, bats, ducks, rabbits, cows, turtles, horses, deer, raccoons, a dead swan, and even buffalo on the job. I'm just a small town cop...not DNR. A couple of weeks back we had to rope a calf that got out at 3am. I always thought it would be kinda cool to wrestle a gator (maybe not one that big, though!)...you Florida guys have all the fun!

quote:

Originally posted by cne32507:
The Blackwater River State Forest near Milton, FL was used by a fox "hunting" (really, just listening to dogs chase fox all night) group. But the dogs started disappearing. One hunter had a radio collar on his favorite when it went missing. Tracked it to a small sinkhole in a spring creek. There was a trail across the creek and the gator just listened for the dinner bell. They called the local gator hunter, a real-life backwoods snaggle-tooth Crocodile Dundee. He hooked the 11' gator with a chicken. When he and his meth-mouth kin couldn't drag him out, he jumped in the sinkhole with the gator and got another rope on him out so they could shoot him. This gator had his ass hanging out of the 8' bed when they took his picture.

Blackwater borders my property. I remember when that happened-still have the newspaper clipping somewhere. We don't see a lot of gators up here like we did in Tampa Bay, but when we do they are usually big ones. It's why I don't hunt ducks and put my dog in the water in Florida. But on balance the gators are nowhere near as dangerous as that Pickle Wheat in the picture above.

If anyone ever has to wrangle one in their back yard or driveway, be sure to wear thick boots as the tail end point is used to sweep and stick.

Watched a gator show at a Texas Trophy Hunters Extravaganza in Houston and the wrangler had a brace for his achilles and volunteered that a big gator took it out by sweeping and poking him with once before.

I do love me some gator belly boots!!

There is a place down in New Orleans that serves Blackened Alligator tail that is awesome!! A bit pricy, but worth every penny.

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Originally posted by lastmanstanding:

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Originally posted by HRK:
7 feet and less they get relocated, he's aggressive and been living around humans
sat there 45 minutes while we waited for the trapper so he's probably been fed by some transplant from up north thinking it's cool.

So he's on his way to be made into belts, boots and dinner for the homeless...

That's a damn shame. More people need to be put down than animals. Same thing when people wander into bear territory unprepared and get mauled by mama bear protecting her cubs. Mama bear gets dispatched along with the cubs. My bet would be they could cut that gator loose out in the glades and he'd never find his way back to suburbia or would want to.

You need to live down here for a while to see that this sucker becoming boots and belts is a very good thing and no great loss. We've got an almost never ending supply of gators. They're everywhere. When they opt to take up residence in a neighborhood they need to go.

I have lots of gator stories from working in the Tampa Bay area for 20 years. One that I recall is an elderly lady who lived on a lakefront was feeding the gators meat scraps from her dock. She got sick and went into the hospital, and the gator came up to the house looking for food. That one tore tires off her car parked in the driveway. In another case on the same lake a gator came right through the screened porch and through the sliding glass doors into the living room to get the family dog. That place was a mess. Once those gators start associating people with food they are dangerous. One effect of all those gators, we had no stray dog or cat problem. They would go down to the ponds and lakes to get a drink and bam, the gators had lunch.

Yep Gators are sort of like cattle. Plenty of good folks catching them and then selling them. Both the hide and the meat are used. Whole smoked gator makes a great party conversational piece.

Eh. I’ve seen bigger. LOL

But I’ve been living in FL for awhile.

It is sad that they have to be put down at that size.