Bowhunting.Net
Bowhunting
For Alligator 2006
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Bowhunting.Net
Bowhunting
For Alligator 2006
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| Alligator
Bowhunts and on the spot pictures -- by Robert Hoague
2006
Bowhunt For Florida Alligator
Fighting Gators
Brad Gibson wore the only spotlight on a rig that fit on his head, a bright light powered by the airboat. I took a flashless picture of Brad from behind him and the light looked like the moon.
Brad drove fast and the beam zipped over the the edges of the islands of floating water plants that were all over the lake in the area we were in. We didn't know it yet, but Kevin Sullivan and I were going to be up close and personal with in two hours, in a gator kind of way.
Brad handled his airboat with unquestionable skill. Right away he started shinning alligators and drove to them quickly and when he was close to them he suddenly reduced speed. Only to race away and look for more gators. Kevin Sullivan manned the front of the boat and I climbed up to one of the high seats so I could Kevin is a veteran at bowfishing and over and over when the boat closed on a gator Kevin got into shooting position at the front of the boat. My first thought was that I was going to have a hard time doing this because the boat was moving so fast. So I climbed up to the highest seat to watch for awhile.
What I realized -- later on -- was that when we closed in on a gator, and Brad thought it was smaller than he wanted us to shoot, he turned tail and hunted for a bigger one. When he found one that was up to his standards he planned to stop. But that hadn't happened ... yet. We saw a lot of gators, by my count 37 as we closed on yet another gator's set of bright yellow eyes at the edge of a floating Tusit island. Surprise! The boat dropped speed and almost stopped. An alligator was to the left of the boat and Brad had the light on it. Kevin was some already at full draw and shot. He missed. The line on his bowfishing arrow disappeared into the floating plants and Kevin was not able to retrieve the line quickly. "Hand me my bow," I said to David Mills, it was on his side of the boat and mine, and he passed it across to me. In an instant I was on the left side of the deck, nocking my fish arrow. Unbelievably the alligator held his ground, only 6 feet from the boat. Although I've never hunted them I lived in Florida for years and had seen gators before. But never one that was anything close to as wide as the one I was putting my top pin on right now. I released. The big gator dove. Had I hit it? Line was going out of my reel, an AMS Slotted Retriever with 640 pound test line, the big gator had my arrow in him. Kevin told me to drop my float into the water and I took it off its mounting peg on my bow and let it fall. Seconds later it slid along the top of the water and moved away from us. Not fast, but steady.
Brad hopped down from his captain's chair and lit a cigarette and we waited several minutes and then he started the airboat again and drove. slowly now, in the direction the float had gone. The bright yellow float was 50 yards away, bogging gently in the water near the edge of a floating tusit island. We went to it and David shined his flashlight in the water and followed the line on the float ... into the nearby thick, dense, tangled stalks and leaves of the tusit island.
"This isn't good." Mike Edwards said. "Your gator is in there." David picked the float out of the water and laid it on the boat deck and picked up a boat paddle. Brad already had a long pole and they slowly poled the 15 foot boat into the floating vegetation.
David Mills looked my way and said, "The string on that float goes right to our gator. I don't think he's very far either." He was right on both counts.
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