What a week. Alligator, neighbors dog, snake, and downed trees

[phiferpharm]

Just got back from visiting my property in Miami and when I got back here, found out an Alligator ate one of the neighbors dogs, my main road has two trees that fell over, and the snakes are getting active. Freshwater Game guy came out and dispatched the gator. I bid a farewell with my Snake Tamer to a water moccasin beside my jon boat that my neighbor's son was trying to use, and me, the Grapple and the Chainsaw will have some bonding in the morning. I do love being out here. Keeps ya on your toes.

 

[RadarTech]

Just got back from visiting my property in Miami and when I got back here, found out an Alligator ate one of the neighbors dogs, my main road has two trees that fell over, and the snakes are getting active. Freshwater Game guy came out and dispatched the gator. I bid a farewell with my Snake Tamer to a water moccasin beside my jon boat that my neighbor's son was trying to use, and me, the Grapple and the Chainsaw will have some bonding in the morning. I do love being out here. Keeps ya on your toes.

I can't believe you said on your toes.....
The moccasin would have really gotten me nervous....

Can you shoot the gator without calling someone else?

 

[creekbend]

www.unitedwildlife.com/AnimalsAlligators.html

 

[phiferpharm]

I can't believe you said on your toes.....
The moccasin would have really gotten me nervous....

Can you shoot the gator without calling someone else?

I don't know, but the Game guy came out and took care of it very fast. Thats about the 3-4 moccasin, so I'm getting pretty good practice at the 8-10 foot range:thumbsup:

Thanks for the link creekbend. The game guys like to fish out here occasionally, so they have been really good about working with the folks when they are called.

 

[jinman]

Doug, I've seen several cottonmouths around my pond/lake, but have only killed one that wasn't moving fast because it had a fish half-swallowed in it's mouth. The rest of them move like lightnin' to get away from me whenever I see them. I've never seen anything short and fat like a cottonmouth that can move so fast. That's just here though. When I was a kid my dad had two stock tanks full of cottonmouths. They never seemed to run. Once when slaughtering a beef in the early spring, we had the carcass hanging on a big pecan tree and blood and entrails spread around in various places. We had a cottonmouth that looked thin and hungry come crawling up with what seemed like 2' of its body in the air and swinging back and forth like a cobra. I'm sure it really wasn't that tall, but my dad just grabbed a shovel and turned its head into a t-ball target.:laughing: Now, the scariest encounters came when seining minnows and you'd feel something long and wiggly on your leg as it swam around the end of the net.:shocked: An American Indian friend said they wouldn't bite under water, but I'm not sure I believe that.

 

[sandman2234]

An American Indian friend said they wouldn't bite under water, but I'm not sure I believe that.

For some reason, I would probably argue with that... other than just because I like to argue! Kid up here a few years ago fell off a set of ski's into a submerged nest of water mocassin's and was bitten more times than you can imagine.
David from jax

 

[dmccarty]

...

Can you shoot the gator without calling someone else?

Not unless there was a current threat aka the gator was eating someone or something. There are permits to take a gator though. I don't know if they have started giving out more of them but it used to be kinda hard to get a permit to take a gator. Given how many gators there are now a days the state should increase gator hunting. Hopefully they have.

The WRC, which used to be the GFC, will dispatch a trapper pretty quickly to remove problem gators. Usually it is a trapper but if the gator is a immediate threat to people an officer might trap out the gator instead. Well, it used to be that way but I can't imagine they have changed.

Back in the 90's my wife, dad and I went on a kayak/canoe trip down a river in South FLA. As we were putting in the boats a trapper was as well to get a gator. The gator had killed a kid on the river earlier in the week. An hour or so downstream we saw a gator. Pretty sure it was The Gator. Not very big though. This part of the river is very narrow, more a creek than a river, since the river was at most 20 feet across. The water was crystal clear and there were only a couple of places where you could haul a boat on to a sandbar. The gator was on one of the sandbars. The family said the kid was splashing in the water when the gator got him. I still think they were feeding the gator when it grabbed the kid. There is just no way a person who had sight could not see that gator in that water. There was no place to hide. No weeds, no nothing in clear water. They would have had to have beached their boat, walked 3-4 feet and turned their back on the kid and the water to not see a gator.

Anyway, my dad got a cool photo of the wifey in the kayak on the river and somewhere I have a blurry photo of the gator trying to warm up on a sandbar. Mr Gator only had a few hours left but did not know it.

There were three gator biting people incidents that I knew off at the time the kid was killed. One person was feeding the gators which is a crime. In the other incident the a firefighter in a boat on a canal in he Everglades decided he wanted to wrestle a gator... Gator 1. Man 0. Dumb a...s. At least in the other cases the humans were not killed.

Later,
Dan

 

[phiferpharm]

Doug, I've seen several cottonmouths around my pond/lake, but have only killed one that wasn't moving fast because it had a fish half-swallowed in it's mouth. The rest of them move like lightnin' to get away from me whenever I see them.

Yup, they are fast. The one before this one of the other boys that lives nearby came over to use the boat and it was a bigger snake. He took off towards the water, I did a one hand pistol-type shot with the Snake Tamer and took it's head off. While I KNOW it was a lucky shot, the neighbor boy was amazed.. I just smiled politely (and inwardly was also pretty amazed)

I have no problems with the snakes that I know are safe. Problem is the wife has given me two absolutes - No girlfriends and no snakes....

 

[bullbreaker]

Doug, I've seen several cottonmouths around my pond/lake, but have only killed one that wasn't moving fast because it had a fish half-swallowed in it's mouth. The rest of them move like lightnin' to get away from me whenever I see them. I've never seen anything short and fat like a cottonmouth that can move so fast. That's just here though. When I was a kid my dad had two stock tanks full of cottonmouths. They never seemed to run. Once when slaughtering a beef in the early spring, we had the carcass hanging on a big pecan tree and blood and entrails spread around in various places. We had a cottonmouth that looked thin and hungry come crawling up with what seemed like 2' of its body in the air and swinging back and forth like a cobra. I'm sure it really wasn't that tall, but my dad just grabbed a shovel and turned its head into a t-ball target.:laughing: Now, the scariest encounters came when seining minnows and you'd feel something long and wiggly on your leg as it swam around the end of the net.:shocked: An American Indian friend said they wouldn't bite under water, but I'm not sure I believe that.

Jim not very common but have come up on 6' easily cottonmouths around here(Edge of Fla/Everglades) that stand up 3' to 4' off ground and hiss and try to lunge at you just like you described like a cobra. One backed me up and made me retreat for Remmy 870 w/00 buck. My favorite medicine for them !
Believe it or not have seen em traveling in pairs_5-6' -ers in what I believe is mating traveveling down canals propeling them selves in a twirling motion.

BTW : In 54 years have only come across 1 17' + python.


Boone

 

[Stimw]

Florida has a Gator Hunt Raffle that you can sign up for every year. You get a permit for two gators, have to have taken a class and I think you need a licenced trapper with you.
There was a show on Animal Planet, a guy caught about a 2' gator and taped it's mouth shut with electrical tape and called FWC. Officer showed up, took gator and wrote guy a ticket for "Harassing it"!!
I've killed 2 Cottonmouths and 1 Rattler on my property, all with a shovel! No time for Dirty Harry, they would have been gone.