Last summer, rumor started circulating around where we hunt in Louisiana that a record sized alligator was cruising the swamps near our property. We spent many days looking for the beast to see if the buzz was true or not. The day we laid eyes on him we knew we were looking at a once in a lifetime opportunity.
The gator was not just big, he was a freak, a “legit dinosaur” Ken said upon watching him roll and disappear into the black water. The guesses went from 12 to 14 feet long amongst us all on how big he actually was but the only thing we agreed upon was that he was smart. He was nearly a 100 yards away and was not sticking around long for us to take a look at. Another
thing we agreed on was that we all thought he was big enough to eclipse the 100% bow kill world record by a long shot. How were we going to get close enough to shoot him with a bow? Easy we thought, we will use his stomach against him and bait him with a line with no hook and rotten meat.
It’s not our style to go buy bait when it comes to fishing and the same thing goes for alligator hunting. Most gator hunters hang chicken meat from trees to catch alligators but we decided to get creative. One of our other hunting properties is over-run with hogs so it just made sense to take the opportunity to go hunt for what you needed to hunt for gators. Any plan that involves nonstop hunting is always a good plan in our book. However we do not like wasting time in a tree in 90 degree weather fighting mosquitoes so we brought out our ace in the hole for killing hogs. Our ace in the hole was none other than In Sights Nutrition’s products HOG NUT™ and HOG TRAP™. HOG NUT™ is a peanut based product that has 20 % protein and 30% fat with a peanut smell and flavor that causes hogs to turn their noses up at corn to get it. HOG TRAP™ is a sugar based syrup that smells and tastes so good that you will want to save some to put it on ice cream later. The sweet sugary smell of the hog trap is a hogs worst enemy because with their sense of smell being as good as it is, I bet they can smell it a mile away with the right wind and when they do smell it they are coming. It didn’t take us but 1 day to fill the chest freezer up with hogs that were ready to be gator bait.
For the next 3 weeks of the season we learned a lot about alligators and their feeding patterns, territorial behavior and survival instincts. Our hunt for the record sized alligator took a toll on us physically, emotionally and financially but the chase came to a head on the last day of the season with the cameras rolling.
The episode “Gator Bait” will air The Resistance TV Sunday, Aug 3, 12:30pm central on The Sportsman Channel and Monday 1:00pm Central on The Sportsman Channel
