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
Cadillac Style... Today we were bowhunting alligators on a different lake. David Mills told Kevin and I we were going "Cadillac Style" tonight. We met Jody Dotson and drove to Imokolee, Florida. There, we met Daman Sharp and we all scarfed down some Wendy's burgers and drove to the nearby lake Trafford. Jody had his custom airboat in tow. He is an active member of SouthernAirboat.com and is very knowledgeable about building airboats. He designed and built this airboat from scratch, beginning with a monster Cadillac engine. When he was finished with the airboat it was nicknamed "Cadillac Style."
Damon Sharp brought his own boat, an outboard powered skiff, and was going to help us locate alligators as well as assist as needed. Damon enjoys building stuff and he made the harpoon spearhead and 12 gage bang stick that were on the airboat. Once in the water Jody passed the light along the edge of the lake and we saw numerous sets of alligator eyes at all distances. We were excited. Things looked promising. Jody had a different technique for hunting alligators, he drove around slower than Brad had yesterday and frequently navigated into the jungle of water plants that were around the entire lake. His airboat was very quiet running. The area had received flooding rains the past several days and the lake had an unusually high water level. As we made our way toward the alligators eyes we noticed that these gators were quicker to move away than those from the night before on Lake Okechobee. Sometimes we were in very thick stuff.
Sometimes it was more open. Jody and I used spotlights and worked everything around us, searching for alligator eyes. It was not difficult to find them, there were plenty.
We constantly approached the eyes of alligators. In the picture below you see Kevin Sullivan and to the right, with the bright red eye, there is a gator.
We went from gator to gator, looking for another monster.
Sometimes they would hold and let us get close to them.
More often they ducked under surface of the water as we approached them. In fact, the majority of the 100 or so gators we saw each hour were skittish and dropped out of sight before we got to them. Sometimes we raced up to them, other times we went slowly, and most of the time they disappeared before got in bow range. A little after midnight as we slowly drove through the dense water plants near the shore we shined a gator that's eyes were very wide apart. Jody moved his airboat closer to the gator and shut off the engine. We free floated toward the eyes and the gator submerged. Kevin is a seasoned bowfisherman can confidently hit in this situation. He drew to be ready. The spotlight showed up a massive gator, visible just below the surface of the water, swimming slowly. While at full draw Kevin sized the gator as a trophy gator, one of the best seen on this lake tonight. But the gator was quickly becoming barely visible under the water's surface and had reached a distance that had become a questionable shot. Maybe we would see this big boy again. We continued to work the open water and the water plants.
Half way through our second trip around the lake we got up on a gator that was one of the 3 largest gators we had seen on this lake. It was 3:02 in the morning. We shined it in the ocean of thick water plants. Jody moved the boat carefully and eased into shooting distance of the gator. Everything looked good and Kevin drew to be ready. At the last minute the gator slowly dropped below the surface. Kevin, being a veteran bowfishing enthusiast, knew how to handle this situation. He aimed like he had done hundreds of times before on gar or carp and released. The arrow looked close to me but I couldn't tell if it was hit or not. Line started pealing out of Kevin's AMS Slotted Reel and he looked real happy! Kevin pulled the remaining line out of the reel and dropped the red and white AMS buoy into the water. The buoy went away from us at a steady clip, toward the open water. Jody started his airboat and we kept up with the buoy. When the buoy stopped moving Jody pulled up alongside it and he and David tied off the end of the line. The gator changed course and headed back toward the aquatic vegetation he had been in ... pulling our boat behind him !!!
David Mills and Jody Dotson knew what was probably going to happen next, but Kevin and I didn't expect what this fighting gator was about to do... NEXT: The
Fight Is On ...
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