Alligator Bowhunt: Arrival Day

Sponsored by David Mills of Team Strutn’ Ruttn’ Reeln’ and Gene Turner Jr. of Team Turner Loose. And Access Tonneau Covers, ThermaCELL, Grim Reaper Broadheads and BowTube.com.

On Sunday night I stayed near Lake City, Florioda in an America’s Best Inn and slept in the absolutely worst bed. It kept waking me up and when I got up the next morning my back was really hurting. I won’t stay there on the way back.

The drive to Arcadia, Florida and Alligator hunting headquarters was smooth going. When I arrived at Team Struttn’ Ruittn’ Reeln’ my friend and the owner David Mills said, “Lets go look around.”

We got in one of David’s big Chevy pickups with huge mud tires and a high lift kit and went “looking around.” As we crossed a field a lone cow watched us from the shade of some large oak trees. That’s “Spanish Moss” hanging down from the trees, it’s a Florida thing.

From there we drove into another open area but this one had plenty of water in it.

David’s son Colton was driving the big wheeled truck and he stopped and pointed out a baby alligator at the edge of some aquatic plants. Seeing alligators is a challenge, as you can tell.

I zoomed in closer on the gator and now you can easily see its head (on the left) and its tail.

A little furter on we got into an area with channels. Here is a nice gator that we saw. You can see the ridges on its tail and a portion of its back.

Look at his back as he comes by us. You can also see his eye in the water.

A little further down the channel we spotted a small gator looking at us up through the reeds.

We passed through some trees and came out on another channel. David Mills can call alligators and he fired off a few of his gator sounds. In seconds a gator came out of the reeds and stuff and stopped. This was a nice 8-footer and if you let your eye go from his head (in the water) back a little to the left you can see where he is laying.

Here is a closer look at him. He sees us and after a minutes wait he slipped out of sight into the water.

We stopped at a curve and David called in this young gator. You can see his wake as he comes a swimming.

Further up the channel a gator eased his head up to check out David’s calls. He was nice and close to us and let us get a good look at his bug eyed self.

Gators can be hard to see but not much gets by the experienced eyes of David and Colton.

Here is a closer look at him. Much of the time this is what you spot when you are looking for gators, his eyes and the hump of his head.

Here is another gator, a sizable one, swirling up the water as it moves away.

The gator came up to the top in the water and looked around. You can also see where his tai is rippling the water.

This was the last gator we saw. He is laying along the edge of the reeds and goes from one end of the picture to the other.

Then we called it a day and returned to David’s home. His wife Amy and daughter Faith had a great meal of baked chicken in the oven and it topped off a very relaxing and exciting afternoon.

Tomorrow my Gator hunt starts…

Bowhunting.Net: Alligator Bowhunt 2012 Home Page

The 2012 Bowhunting.net Alligator Bowhunt is sponsored by:

Team Struttn’ Ruttn’ Reeln’ on the web. And on Facebook.com/TeamSRR

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