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Texas Swamp
Dragons |
"We're gonna need a bigger boat," I softly mumbled under my breath. My hunting partner Joel O'Shoney, overhearing me, voiced his agreement.
"Yeah... I think you're right. We're gonna need a bigger boat."
We slowly back-paddled the ten-foot kayak away from the mangled rig that we had set up only yesterday. The bamboo calcutta pole had been snapped in two where it was joined to the steel t-post. The post itself had been bowed over, slightly bent just below the surface of the black water. My heart started pounding faster, and the adrenaline seemed to collect in my chest and legs, making my whole body tingle and feel like it was going to sleep. We paddled into the thick reeds, leaving behind us the open water and whatever it was that we had on the other end of the 500-pound test nylon rope..."We're gonna need a bigger boat."
Two days earlier, we had arrived at the Mad Island Wildlife Refuge near Palacios, Texas only to find the weather not very suiting to alligators. With temperatures hovering around 52 degrees and gale force winds, I almost hoped that I wasn't drawn for that day's hunt, as I was there on a stand-by basis. The biologist in charge of the state hunt, Dr. Brent Ortego, was also convinced that the prospects for getting to even see any gators in weather conditions like these were slim to none. But still Joel and I, along with the hunters who had been drawn for the hunt that day, listened raptly to the orientation.
Dr. Ortego told us all about the nearly six thousand acres of gulf coastal prairie and marshlands contained in the refuge, and the estimates of how many alligators the state wanted harvested. He demonstrated the basics of setting up a bait and line, to hook the gator, and told us how one good shotgun slug in the head would promptly dispatch any gator caught on the steel hook. As the other hunters headed out, Joel and I waited until we heard the news that there were no vacancies for the day’s hunt, but to “come back tomorrow,” and hopefully we would get our chance if the goal amount of gators hadn't already been caught.ht.
We spent the next 24 hours holed up at our campsite next to the bay in the town of Palacios, Texas. We sat watching the bay become less and less choppy as the wind died down in late afternoon. By early evening the temperature rose to the mid 60s and I thought to myself how the alligators were probably moving around now, basking in the new warmth of the early evening sun that had finally come from behind the clouds.
Maybe those hunters weren't going to be so unlucky after all. The odds didn't look so good for us: if at least half of the sixteen alligators that the state wanted harvested were caught that night, there wouldn't be any vacancies open for us the next day. The night went by slowly. As we waited, we watched the shrimp boats come and go, occasionally followed by dolphins. It was an enjoyable evening, but one that went by much too slowly.
The next morning we got to the refuge headquarters around eleven to find several hunters already having their alligators measured. One fellow, I heard, had caught a ten footer. He hooked him and quickly shot him in the head with 12-gauge buckshot, only to see the shot bounce off the prehistoric beast's head. After switching to slugs, he had managed to get the alligator at bay. While he had already taken his trophy and left, there were still some incredible-looking animals to be seen, most in the six to eight foot range. They were all "hog tied," with their legs up behind their backs and their jaws duct-taped shut.
Joel and I smiled and shared in the hunter's excitement as they told and retold the stories of their individual hunts. It was hard not to worry that we weren't going to get our turn, but just then Dr. Ortego came over and asked if we still wanted to go. We answered with a resounding "Yes!"
There were two other groups of stand-by hunters, and they would also get to go. The alligator harvest the night before had gone well, but not as well as planned. We paid for our licenses and listened to the orientation for the second time. My mind jumped ahead to the hunt. In under an hour I would be out in the marsh, looking for signs of one of the largest carnivores in North America, an animal I had always thought was often overlooked as a trophy animal.
After the orientation, Joel and I headed to a fresh-water lake in the middle of the refuge. On one side of the lake was a natural levy holding back the brackish coastal waters. On both sides were tall reeds, so thick they seemed almost impenetrable. Even standing on the higher ground of the raised earth levy, I couldn't see the lake past eighty yards out. By 12:30, it was already in the mid 80s, but with the humidity it felt like it was topping the 90s. Following the natural trail on the levy we found signs of an abandoned alligator nest, with small pieces of broken leathery shell still left in the rotting debris. A little further on we found a trail pushing through the reeds on both sides of the embankment. It was a gator trail, a big one.
We decided that after going back to get our equipment, we would follow the trail out into the fresh water lake and set up our rig there. We hadn't brought a boat because we were told the water never got deeper than two feet in most places, and a lot of places were inaccessible by boat anyway. We were going into the marsh on foot.
 Size 11-0 Hooks |
As we unpacked our gear, Dr. Ortego drove up to check on us. He confirmed that we had indeed found a gator trail and showed us on his map exactly where we were. Once we set up our rig, he showed us on the map how there would be an easier way to come at it from the other side via a boat if we got something on the hook, but otherwise walking in was the best way to go. He again assured us that alligators are leery of humans, and that if we walked up on one, the animal would go out of its way to avoid us. |
I put on a backpack containing all of our ropes: fifty feet of 500-pound test nylon rope, 100-pound test nylon leader, some number 11-0 hooks and a sledgehammer. Joel carried our calcutta pole, a steel t-post, and a plastic five-gallon bucket of bait. As Ortego started to drive off, he grinned and told us again that the water didn't get very deep in that area and that we would be fine in our shorts and sneakers. The temperature had only gone up, and I was hoping the water would cool me off a bit as well as keep some of the mosquitoes at bay. So far, neither half of my half-sunscreen, half-insect-repellent formula was working very well.
I stepped off the shore into the thick reeds. The trail was nothing more than a part in the tall eight-foot vegetation, and not much of one at that. The water wasn't cool as I had hoped but warm, almost hot. Good for the alligators, I thought, it'll keep them active. With Joel not far behind, I started wading down the trail. The water wasn't very deep, maybe up to my knees, but as I suddenly sank up to my chest in mud, I realized why Ortego drove away grinning. The water wasn't deep but the mud sure was. It wasn't even mud, it was thick rotting vegetation. My legs were now hotter than the back of my currently sunburning neck.
Joel, who up until now had been voicing his opinion over us deciding against waders, was quickly coming to the realization that they wouldn't have done us any good. I tried stepping forward but couldn't. I tried pulling on some cattails to get myself unstuck, but the plants just folded over or tore. Joel was having the same trouble; neither of us could move. I slowly laid my body forward trying to distribute my weight, and from there pulled my legs forward. It somewhat worked as I got some locomotion. But shortly after we started moving, we only sunk again, deeper and deeper. It was going to take us forever to get to the open water at this pace, but we kept laying down in order to stand up only inches from were we just were.
"If we do see an alligator it's going to be eye to eye!" Joel pointed out. Not a very comforting thought to be thinking while up to your chest in rotting vegetation, I thought to myself.
After what seemed like hours, we finally reached the open water, and it wasn't nearly as bad as the getting there. The water was about two and a half feet deep and the ground beneath it seemed a little more solid, but not that solid, for every step was still a struggle. We picked a spot twenty yards from the trail we had just come through to set up our rig. While standing in waist-deep water and sludge we began driving the steel t-post into the bottom of the lake. Somewhere down underneath the black water we had actually hit solid ground, so we got out our sledgehammer and hammered it as far into the solid ground as possible. Joel opened up my backpack and pulled out the thick nylon rope. He tied it around the t-post and pushed the knotted end all the way down the pole to where it was tied to the bottom of the post. Next we tied the long bamboo calcutta pole onto the t-post, so that it was diagonal to the post and would support our bait well above the water's surface.
The leader came out of my pack next, along with the number 11-0 size hook. I had never done much fishing and was unaware that a hook the size of my hand existed. We ran the leader through the eye of the hook three times, and gave it a length of about six feet before attaching it to the larger rope. Joel floated the large five gallon plastic bucket towards us and the rig.
Neither of us had looked at the cow heart, lungs, and spleen in several gallons of blood since we had sealed it in the bucket and set it out in the sun a week ago. The top of the bucket was bowed and looked as though it was going to explode soon if we didn't open it.
Right as Joel was about to cut the tape from around the bucket's lid, I motioned to him to look out into the water. About fifty yards out we saw the head of an alligator casually swimming perpendicular to us. It was then that I realized the insanity of what we were doing. We were up to our waist in muck with alligators swimming not far away, and we were about to open a bucket of rancid cow flesh. Immediately my mind raced back to when I left home and what loving words of encouragement my girlfriend had given me:
"I love you but I think you're an idiot." Maybe she was right. Unfortunately, it was only now that I saw her point.
Joel and I decided to quickly bait the rig and climb out as quickly as possible. Everything was stored back in my pack, so all we had to do was bait, chum, and leave.
Joel cut the tape around the lid and pried open the bucket. Immediately we both began to dry heave, the smell was revolting beyond words.
"Anything that eats this deserves to die." I said.
"Anything that eats this will die," Joel responded.
We put the large chunks of flesh on the hook and tied the rope about three and a half feet above the water. Joel, being the tallest of us, stretched upwards to tie off the baited hook. As he did, I saw that he had inadvertently tilted the bucket floating next to him. Blood and bits of chum spilled out into the water around him. I looked at the deep red liquid around his waist and immediately started back for the reeds. Once Joel was finished tying the bait, he realized what he had done, and he wasn't far behind. For some reason, maybe the fact that we had coated ourselves in chum and had now seen an alligator not far from us, it didn't take us as long to get through the reeds as it had before. As a matter of fact, I was personally out on dry shore rather quickly.
On the way back to the checkout point, we met another one of our fellow hunters who had also made it on standby. He, not thinking he was going to get to go, hadn't brought any bait. We told him if he could stand the smell of ours he was welcome to some. In return he said we could use his kayak later on if need be. We sat out in the sun drying off and eating a late lunch as Joel burned leeches off himself. Although I didn't have any leeches on me, I had been bitten by everything else that lives in that area.
Close to sundown we borrowed the kayak and paddled out to check our rig. As we approached it, we saw an alligator swimming away from the bait. We'd spooked him. We were both exhilarated and disappointed at the same time. He looked big, maybe seven feet. We went under the rig and decided to freshen the bait. With any luck he'd come back after this foul smelling stuff. We threw cups of blood all over the area and especially on the hanging meat itself.
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Nothing eases the pain of a day spent crawling through leech infested waters like a cold Miller Lite! |
The next morning we arrived at the refuge around 8:45. We grabbed our supplies and a 12-gauge shotgun, loaded them into our borrowed kayak, and set out to check our rig. As we approached it, we saw that the bait was gone, and the calcutta pole was snapped in two where we had tied it to the post. The post itself was bent over and bowed in the middle, and was barely visible below the surface of the water.
We're gonna need a bigger boat.
We hurriedly paddled back to shore where we borrowed the state's 14-foot John boat. Two feet longer and much wider, we both felt it would be a better boat to pull in whatever we had. We paddled up flush to the t-post. Joel saw a bit of the rope just beneath the surface of the water. He grabbed it and began to pull it up, and I stood ready with three 12-gauge sabot slugs.
"I must have the wrong end, it feels like I'm pulling up the post," Joel complained.
"Go ahead and just tie it off...” Before I could finish my words, a huge black skull broke the surface of the water. It was as black as coal and at least a foot and a half wide. It opened its jaws and pushed towards the boat, where we both immediately fell to the floor. As the rope started out of Joel's hands, I lunged to the back of the boat to help him tie it off. The boat began to rock, and we saw a huge tail flail out of the water sending water splashing everywhere. The boat jerked under gator’s strength, and from the floor I could see the reeds coming up on us fast. And then it just stopped. The boat just stopped.
We collected ourselves and got ready to try again. Joel slowly pulled the rope, hand over hand, up from the water.
"Where's the leader?" Joel asked as the rope gave way, and the huge alligator came up by itself. I shouldered the gun and fired right behind the animal's skull. The gator plunged beneath the water’s surface and immediately began for deeper water, our boat again in tow. And as it had before, it suddenly stopped.
Joel started pulling the rope again, and I looked down to see his knees shaking only slightly worse than mine. Again, we saw the black head break the water. As it thrust forward and tried to dive under the boat, I thrust the barrel of the gun into his neck and fired nearly point blank. The boat tipped slightly as it began dragging us again. Joel tied off the slack in the rope, and then we stopped. We both waited, and then pulled up the gator again. This time there was no resistance.
We pulled the head over the bow and duct-tapped the mouth shut, and for the first time we really saw what we had. The animal was huge, almost as long as the boat. We dragged him around to the back and tied him so that his head and front legs were in the boat, as that was all we could fit in the boat.
The back end of the boat sank almost into the water, and because of the new added weight, we had to pole our way to shore. As we did, the beast began to thrash around again. His eyes moved about and we could see that he obviously wasn't dead. I got the shotgun and put one last slug into his neck, and this time he immediately stopped, and his eyes glossed over.
When we reached shore, some other hunters were looking over
their quarry. There were some six-footers. Joel and I struggled to drag
the boat up on shore. Everyone came over to look, and thankfully, help. It
took eight of us to carry the alligator up on shore, and even with seven
people helping I was still straining.
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The final tally was that we had caught the largest alligator ever collected at that refuge, and one of the largest ever in the state of Texas. He was a bull weighing in at over 650 pounds, and was a little over 12 foot 4 inches long. Dr. Ortego was confident that he had been eating wild boar and possibly some deer in the area for more than eighty years. |