Louann and I spent the first hour of the Florida gator season getting soaked out on the north end of Lake George. We would not have been out there had I not told a SMALL lie.
As we were launching the boat we could see a storm moving in from the west and Louann asked if the raingear was in the boat. In answering "yes" I neglected to add....."in the OTHER boat".
By the time the heavy stuff started coming down & she realized that the raingear was not in THIS boat we were a mile from the ramp and it was to late to turn around. The yelling subsided about the time the rain did.
With calm restored, both meterologically & domestically, we had about 30 minutes of light left to look for gators. Sadly the area we had picked was also high on the list of about 8 other boats. Sense we were there first, the rest of them having sat out the storm at the ramp, we got left alone.
Did not do any good though as we saw only 3 gators before it got dark and not of them cooperated. Put the boat back on the trailer at 8:30 with the plan being to go back a little before sunrise.
Sunrise (Monday) found us about 15 miles down the lake in a big cove.....all alone. In fact we saw only one airboat out there and he was running in.
Made runs at 5 gators, all of which headded for the depths while we were still 100 yards out. Darn things are learning!
Managed to snag two, one of which pulled off. The other one, 9' 5" and about 200 pounds came aboard at 7:35.
I will venture to say, based on what we've seen while scouting and what we've seen happening over the last few years, that the gators will be hard to catch this year in our area. The St. Johns and its associated big lakes here in the NE part of the state will the tough......
And this afternoon the ugly part of gator season starts.......cleaning them.
As we were launching the boat we could see a storm moving in from the west and Louann asked if the raingear was in the boat. In answering "yes" I neglected to add....."in the OTHER boat".
By the time the heavy stuff started coming down & she realized that the raingear was not in THIS boat we were a mile from the ramp and it was to late to turn around. The yelling subsided about the time the rain did.
With calm restored, both meterologically & domestically, we had about 30 minutes of light left to look for gators. Sadly the area we had picked was also high on the list of about 8 other boats. Sense we were there first, the rest of them having sat out the storm at the ramp, we got left alone.
Did not do any good though as we saw only 3 gators before it got dark and not of them cooperated. Put the boat back on the trailer at 8:30 with the plan being to go back a little before sunrise.
Sunrise (Monday) found us about 15 miles down the lake in a big cove.....all alone. In fact we saw only one airboat out there and he was running in.
Made runs at 5 gators, all of which headded for the depths while we were still 100 yards out. Darn things are learning!
Managed to snag two, one of which pulled off. The other one, 9' 5" and about 200 pounds came aboard at 7:35.
I will venture to say, based on what we've seen while scouting and what we've seen happening over the last few years, that the gators will be hard to catch this year in our area. The St. Johns and its associated big lakes here in the NE part of the state will the tough......
And this afternoon the ugly part of gator season starts.......cleaning them.