Byron South
New member
This story begins last year when the county I live in had its first alligator season. I knew of a good friend that had a place with lots of gators but because of other priorities was unable to hunt them until the last couple of weeks of season last year. By then the larger gators had become very shy. This wouldn’t have presented much of a problem but I wanted to call a gator to me and then take him instead of the traditional hook and line method. The hook and line method seems more like fishing than hunting to me. My wife and I called in several smaller gators last year but passed on them all in hopes of getting the big one that the land owner had seen. In fact with the last few seconds of shooting time ticking away I watched a smaller gator through my scope not 20 yards away.
By now you’re probably saying “calling an alligator”? Yep, that’s right, calling gators. What I did was go on the internet to do a little research before the hunt and quickly realized that alligators make a variety of sounds for communicating. The two sounds that interested me most were the bellows that the bull alligators do and the distressed calls of the juvenile alligators. I figured, heck, they are predators and should respond as any other predator does. What I didn’t figure in was just how reclusive, intelligent, and sneaky an alligator can be. I was also unaware of how well they could see. I learned a lot over the last week hunting/calling these alligators.
Now for the story:
On May 4th my wife and I went down to where the landowner had seen the large gator hanging out. This is in a pond not far off the river. It is surrounded by tall reeds that make seeing the banks on the near side very difficult. On the small end of the 3 acre pond there is more cover, moss, and lots of lily pads. This makes it very difficult to see a motionless gator that only has his eyes and tip of his nose sticking out above the water. We decided to set up where this narrow end opens up into the more open part. I started off with some bellows and even mixed in some juvenile distress sounds in a little. Within just a minute or so we had a nice size gator approach the call. We estimated him to be about 8 foot (They say the best way to judge an alligator is to estimate the distance between his eyes and nose. If it is 8 inches than it is an 8 foot gator 12” equals a 12’ gator.)
This gator was very tempting but I elected to wait on the big one. We watched this gator for several minutes and I decided to switch to a different sound. I accidentally hit my #4 preset button on my Foxpro call and began playing the coyote pup distress at full volume. I quickly turned it off but not before it had played very loudly for a few seconds. Almost immediately the 8 footer turned and I thought I had spooked him off. I looked to my left and couldn’t believe my eyes. Here comes the one we were waiting for headed right for the other gator.
Lana got the camera on him and as he got in the clear she gave me the go ahead to shoot. I was shooting a 243 loaded with 90 grain scirocco’s. They have a small brain right behind their eyes and that was what I was trying to hit.
The shot felt good, water went everywhere, and the big gator just vanished. No roll, no flop, no nothing, just GONE. We waited for about thirty minutes and didn’t even see a ripple. We then got in the boat and went and dredged with a hook we had made to recover the gator with. We dredged and dredged and then dredged some more and still had found nothing. We went back and for the next couple of days dredged some more. I was sick not only can I not find a dead gator but couldn’t find a live one either. I decided to just camp out on the pond until he either floated up or I found him alive.
On the following Friday I had placed the call on the far side in hopes of calling him again. By placing the call on the far side I had hoped to get a better shot as he skirted the bank next to the reeds. Sure enough he popped up not far from the call. Not wanting to miss another opportunity I took my time, got plenty steady and squeezed the trigger. This time I was using my R-15 shooting 69 grain MK. I have lots of confidence in this rifle and felt this bullet would do the trick. I heard the gratifying sound of a solid hit, the gator then rolled and went down.
After considerable dredging we got him up only to discover it was not the big one. I was a little disappointed but still tickled that I finally called in and killed a nice sized gator on film.
9 foot gator
Knowing there was still the bigger gator in the pond my wife wanted to try for him. We didn’t get back until after noon on Saturday but it wasn’t long until we located him. We played cat and mouse with him for quite a while and didn’t get any good footage at all but I had already instructed Lana that if she could get a good shot on him to take it. She did and her aim was true.
Lana's 11'5" Gator
All in all we had had a great hunt, put in lots of hours, learned a lot, and took two fantastic gators, most of which is on film and will be included on my next DVD. Alligators after all are predators and we had them “Coming to the Call”. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
Hope you enjoy the pictures and story.
Good Hunting, and God Bless,
Byron
By now you’re probably saying “calling an alligator”? Yep, that’s right, calling gators. What I did was go on the internet to do a little research before the hunt and quickly realized that alligators make a variety of sounds for communicating. The two sounds that interested me most were the bellows that the bull alligators do and the distressed calls of the juvenile alligators. I figured, heck, they are predators and should respond as any other predator does. What I didn’t figure in was just how reclusive, intelligent, and sneaky an alligator can be. I was also unaware of how well they could see. I learned a lot over the last week hunting/calling these alligators.
Now for the story:
On May 4th my wife and I went down to where the landowner had seen the large gator hanging out. This is in a pond not far off the river. It is surrounded by tall reeds that make seeing the banks on the near side very difficult. On the small end of the 3 acre pond there is more cover, moss, and lots of lily pads. This makes it very difficult to see a motionless gator that only has his eyes and tip of his nose sticking out above the water. We decided to set up where this narrow end opens up into the more open part. I started off with some bellows and even mixed in some juvenile distress sounds in a little. Within just a minute or so we had a nice size gator approach the call. We estimated him to be about 8 foot (They say the best way to judge an alligator is to estimate the distance between his eyes and nose. If it is 8 inches than it is an 8 foot gator 12” equals a 12’ gator.)
This gator was very tempting but I elected to wait on the big one. We watched this gator for several minutes and I decided to switch to a different sound. I accidentally hit my #4 preset button on my Foxpro call and began playing the coyote pup distress at full volume. I quickly turned it off but not before it had played very loudly for a few seconds. Almost immediately the 8 footer turned and I thought I had spooked him off. I looked to my left and couldn’t believe my eyes. Here comes the one we were waiting for headed right for the other gator.
Lana got the camera on him and as he got in the clear she gave me the go ahead to shoot. I was shooting a 243 loaded with 90 grain scirocco’s. They have a small brain right behind their eyes and that was what I was trying to hit.
The shot felt good, water went everywhere, and the big gator just vanished. No roll, no flop, no nothing, just GONE. We waited for about thirty minutes and didn’t even see a ripple. We then got in the boat and went and dredged with a hook we had made to recover the gator with. We dredged and dredged and then dredged some more and still had found nothing. We went back and for the next couple of days dredged some more. I was sick not only can I not find a dead gator but couldn’t find a live one either. I decided to just camp out on the pond until he either floated up or I found him alive.
On the following Friday I had placed the call on the far side in hopes of calling him again. By placing the call on the far side I had hoped to get a better shot as he skirted the bank next to the reeds. Sure enough he popped up not far from the call. Not wanting to miss another opportunity I took my time, got plenty steady and squeezed the trigger. This time I was using my R-15 shooting 69 grain MK. I have lots of confidence in this rifle and felt this bullet would do the trick. I heard the gratifying sound of a solid hit, the gator then rolled and went down.
After considerable dredging we got him up only to discover it was not the big one. I was a little disappointed but still tickled that I finally called in and killed a nice sized gator on film.
9 foot gator
Knowing there was still the bigger gator in the pond my wife wanted to try for him. We didn’t get back until after noon on Saturday but it wasn’t long until we located him. We played cat and mouse with him for quite a while and didn’t get any good footage at all but I had already instructed Lana that if she could get a good shot on him to take it. She did and her aim was true.
Lana's 11'5" Gator
All in all we had had a great hunt, put in lots of hours, learned a lot, and took two fantastic gators, most of which is on film and will be included on my next DVD. Alligators after all are predators and we had them “Coming to the Call”. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
Hope you enjoy the pictures and story.
Good Hunting, and God Bless,
Byron
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