Me, my dad and a friend hit the water on opening day at 1:00pm. At 1:30 we came up on two guys and a girl hooked up on a gator with two rods. They were blocking the creek so we just sat and watched and waited. We could hear them saying it was a 12 footer and when I heard them say he was coming up and one of the guys was pointing his pistol at the water I realized that they needed some help. I asked them if they needed help and they said yes, please. So we eased up and I threw my big hook on a hand line down and horsed him up and finished the deed. They had a dang good gator that was between 10 and 10-1/2 foot or so.(just a guess)




After a celebration beer with them we parted ways and continued on our hunt to fill my tag. After about 8 hours of searching and not seeing anything bigger than 7-8 foot we finally found a good gator. I hooked him on the first cast and handed my dad the rod. Then I got a 2nd rod hooked to him and handed it to my buddy. I got my bow ready and we waited. After 30-45 minutes I got impatient and decided to go ahead and throw a hand line on him even though I really wanted to put an arrow in him. I pulled him up with the hand line and he started rolling and in the chaos of trying to keep from breaking the rods he came up tail first and beat the shit out of me with his tail. He broke one of the rods in two places and was fighting like a badger so I spine shot him to try and slow him down a little. It worked and we were then able to get his head up to kill him. This is the 3rd tag of mine that me and my dad have filled. This one and the last one in 2011 were both 11' 3". Good times!