Spring has sprung. Get out and shoot your Henry

Big ol' gator

User avatar
GunnyGene
Drover
Posts: 2570
Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2018 6:15 am
Location: Monroe County, MS
United States of America

Re: Big ol' gator

Post by GunnyGene » Sun Aug 30, 2020 3:14 pm

Gator #2 bagged last nite. A runt. Only 6' 9". Easy peasy. :mrgreen:

Image
1 x
Bellum Omnium Contra Omnes is rapidly becoming a reality (11/2023). Para Bellum.

User avatar
clovishound
Drover
Posts: 2070
Joined: Wed Apr 13, 2016 4:18 pm
Location: Summerville SC
United States of America

Re: Big ol' gator

Post by clovishound » Fri Oct 16, 2020 1:57 am

When gators reach a certain size they seem to start growing WIDE vs long.

I've run into a few gators underwater when diving the rivers around here. The only one that worried me was the one that followed me a 1/4 mile back to the boat. Never messed with me, but followed along about 5 - 8 feet behind me. Made me a little nervous.
0 x
There is, I think, humor here which does not translate well from English to sanity. - Sanya

User avatar
BrokenolMarine
Ranch Foreman
Posts: 5770
Joined: Sat Nov 26, 2016 8:28 am
Location: South Central Oklahoma in the mountains
United States of America

Re: Big ol' gator

Post by BrokenolMarine » Fri Oct 16, 2020 9:24 am

I lived all over FL as a kid, from the keys, to the Everglades, Forgotten Coast, to the panhandle. When I was about ten, I lived on a wide dike in a trailer, in a line of trailers, between to lakes down near the Everglades for a while. A gravel road ran down on edge of the dike, and the kids of all the hard working moms and dads gathered in an open front shelter to wait each morning.

My first morning, I hear a commotion in the water near the bus stop, and a huge gator climbs the side of the bank about thirty yards from the bus stop and lays down in the road to sun. The rest of the kids don't even look at this monster. "Ah, what the heck is that?"

One of the girls laughed, and said, "Oh, that's just Martha, she's been around a couple years."

The bus showed up, we got on, the driver tapped the horn. The gator got up and walked to the edge of the road, the bus drove past, then the gator turned and walked back to the center of the road and laid back down.

Back then, Gators were protected, huge fine and jail time for poaching.
2 x
You can tell a lot about the character of a man...
by the way he treats those who can do nothing for him.

Team Roper
Cowhand
Posts: 437
Joined: Thu Jul 02, 2020 5:16 am
Location: N.E. Ohio
United States of America

Re: Big ol' gator

Post by Team Roper » Fri Oct 16, 2020 10:21 am

clovishound wrote:
Fri Oct 16, 2020 1:57 am
When gators reach a certain size they seem to start growing WIDE vs long.

I've run into a few gators underwater when diving the rivers around here. The only one that worried me was the one that followed me a 1/4 mile back to the boat. Never messed with me, but followed along about 5 - 8 feet behind me. Made me a little nervous.
Awe, a fellow scuba diver. That sounds like a pretty scary encounter underwater. Reminds me of when I took my mother to dive with me in Bonaire and a few hundred Barracudas followed behind us from a few feet to our boat a few hundred feet away. My Mom didn't show any fear because she didn't know any better because I took her there and gave her her open water dives right there in Bonaire when I was an instructor. Me, I was a little worried but refrained from taking my shiny dive knife from it's sheath. :shock:
1 x
Army Paratrooper
173 rd Airborne Brigade, 2nd/503 rd. Airborne Infantry, Vietnam 66-67, point man, tunnel rat
combat jump 2/67
82 nd Airborne Div. 1st/505th Airborne Infantry, Vietnam, 68, Sniper
jumped with the Army Parachute Team, The Golden Knights.

User avatar
clovishound
Drover
Posts: 2070
Joined: Wed Apr 13, 2016 4:18 pm
Location: Summerville SC
United States of America

Re: Big ol' gator

Post by clovishound » Fri Oct 16, 2020 11:52 am

Well, the ones I've run into underwater just move on off. This one was on the surface. I tried going to the bottom to get some distance, but had a blocked ear. Couldn't much below 8' without blowing an ear drum. He stayed on the surface while I swam at about 8' a good ways, but stayed with me. When I surfaced and swam back to the boat, he just followed along. He finally broke off when I got close to the boat. After I got back on the boat, I looked around for the gator, and he was circling my buddy's bubbles. I carefully put the boat between him and the bubbles and he backed down. This was in an area that had a reputation for kayakers feeding gators in order to get a good close look at them. Unlawful, and down right stupid.

The worst wildlife runins I've had in the river have been with the critters driving the boats. They have killed divers here in South Carolina, the other critters haven't, yet.
1 x
There is, I think, humor here which does not translate well from English to sanity. - Sanya

User avatar
GunnyGene
Drover
Posts: 2570
Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2018 6:15 am
Location: Monroe County, MS
United States of America

Re: Big ol' gator

Post by GunnyGene » Fri Oct 16, 2020 1:55 pm

Never had any gator encounters in or out of the water. But I did have a unexpected face to teeth introduction to a very large moray eel about 10' down a reef wall on Wake Island once. I didn't hang around to see if he wanted to kiss me or eat me. :shock:
0 x
Bellum Omnium Contra Omnes is rapidly becoming a reality (11/2023). Para Bellum.

Team Roper
Cowhand
Posts: 437
Joined: Thu Jul 02, 2020 5:16 am
Location: N.E. Ohio
United States of America

Re: Big ol' gator

Post by Team Roper » Fri Oct 16, 2020 3:08 pm

GunnyGene wrote:
Fri Oct 16, 2020 1:55 pm
Never had any gator encounters in or out of the water. But I did have a unexpected face to teeth introduction to a very large moray eel about 10' down a reef wall on Wake Island once. I didn't hang around to see if he wanted to kiss me or eat me. :shock:
Lol,that was good. I went diving with an island dive guide one time who had an index finger missing. I asked him what happened and he had stuck his finger in a eel's mouth while the eel was still clung to the reef.. all gone! He was demonstrating how they breath. :roll:
0 x
Army Paratrooper
173 rd Airborne Brigade, 2nd/503 rd. Airborne Infantry, Vietnam 66-67, point man, tunnel rat
combat jump 2/67
82 nd Airborne Div. 1st/505th Airborne Infantry, Vietnam, 68, Sniper
jumped with the Army Parachute Team, The Golden Knights.

User avatar
BrokenolMarine
Ranch Foreman
Posts: 5770
Joined: Sat Nov 26, 2016 8:28 am
Location: South Central Oklahoma in the mountains
United States of America

Re: Big ol' gator

Post by BrokenolMarine » Sat Oct 17, 2020 12:16 am

I dove in Hawaii for three years, and my dive partner was my pastor's wife. He knew she was safe with me on multiple levels. We had a signal for emergency surface if you were within reach but the partner was looking away, pinch them hard.... :o

We were diving "Shark's Cove" so called because from the air it was shaped like a dorsal fin. When you entered the water and swam seaward, there was a large bowl, twenty feet or so deep, then farther out a larger bowl as the cove widened, thirty feet, farther out, an even larger bowl closer to fifty feet. Each bowl had structure in it, like coral, large rock formations, and the bottom was rippled from the surge. Great cove to find shells.

To hold a position you had to kick against the outgoing surge, and ride the incoming surge, kick against the outgoing, ride the incoming. I was on the bottom, having hit a sharktooth jackpot, fighting the surge... When I felt a burning pain in my right thigh. I pulled the inflator on my vest and shot to the surface...

As I rose I saw a huge moray pass under me, twisting and snapping his jaws, he had to be six or eight feet long six to eight inches thick, and pissed. I watched him swim around the reef, still on the bottom, and vanish.

My dive partner popped up beside me grinning. "Sorry, you were about to become lunch." ;)

"I saw, what was his issue."

" poor guy was sitting in his hole in the reef, waiting in ambush for lunch, when the surge pushed you back and you kicked him in the face two or three times to hold against the surge. Just as he was going to bite your fin, and maybe your foot, the surge reversed, and you flew the other direction... He's a foot out of the hole, looking hot! The surge pushes you back and you bat him around like you are mo and curly. "

She is dying laughing now.

"I managed to get there just as he shot full length out of the hole, following you in the surge ride away.... :shock: "
0 x
You can tell a lot about the character of a man...
by the way he treats those who can do nothing for him.

Team Roper
Cowhand
Posts: 437
Joined: Thu Jul 02, 2020 5:16 am
Location: N.E. Ohio
United States of America

Re: Big ol' gator

Post by Team Roper » Sat Oct 17, 2020 6:54 am

BrokenolMarine wrote:
Sat Oct 17, 2020 12:16 am
I dove in Hawaii for three years, and my dive partner was my pastor's wife. He knew she was safe with me on multiple levels. We had a signal for emergency surface if you were within reach but the partner was looking away, pinch them hard.... :o

We were diving "Shark's Cove" so called because from the air it was shaped like a dorsal fin. When you entered the water and swam seaward, there was a large bowl, twenty feet or so deep, then farther out a larger bowl as the cove widened, thirty feet, farther out, an even larger bowl closer to fifty feet. Each bowl had structure in it, like coral, large rock formations, and the bottom was rippled from the surge. Great cove to find shells.

To hold a position you had to kick against the outgoing surge, and ride the incoming surge, kick against the outgoing, ride the incoming. I was on the bottom, having hit a sharktooth jackpot, fighting the surge... When I felt a burning pain in my right thigh. I pulled the inflator on my vest and shot to the surface...

As I rose I saw a huge moray pass under me, twisting and snapping his jaws, he had to be six or eight feet long six to eight inches thick, and pissed. I watched him swim around the reef, still on the bottom, and vanish.

My dive partner popped up beside me grinning. "Sorry, you were about to become lunch." ;)

"I saw, what was his issue."

" poor guy was sitting in his hole in the reef, waiting in ambush for lunch, when the surge pushed you back and you kicked him in the face two or three times to hold against the surge. Just as he was going to bite your fin, and maybe your foot, the surge reversed, and you flew the other direction... He's a foot out of the hole, looking hot! The surge pushes you back and you bat him around like you are mo and curly. "

She is dying laughing now.

"I managed to get there just as he shot full length out of the hole, following you in the surge ride away.... :shock: "
Oh man, that is so funny. You really scared me though when you said you pulled the inflator and "shot" to the surface. I am happy you didn't have the word " embolized" in your sentence.
We made some great night dives in the Caribbean and the creatures that show up at night in the dark of the water are things out of a Jules Verne movie. Some gave me great concerns but what an experience.
0 x
Army Paratrooper
173 rd Airborne Brigade, 2nd/503 rd. Airborne Infantry, Vietnam 66-67, point man, tunnel rat
combat jump 2/67
82 nd Airborne Div. 1st/505th Airborne Infantry, Vietnam, 68, Sniper
jumped with the Army Parachute Team, The Golden Knights.

User avatar
GunnyGene
Drover
Posts: 2570
Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2018 6:15 am
Location: Monroe County, MS
United States of America

Re: Big ol' gator

Post by GunnyGene » Sat Oct 17, 2020 7:20 am

Team Roper wrote:
Sat Oct 17, 2020 6:54 am

We made some great night dives in the Caribbean and the creatures that show up at night in the dark of the water are things out of a Jules Verne movie. Some gave me great concerns but what an experience.
Yep. What lives in the oceans makes anything on land look like a cuddly puppy. Just about every critter has big sharp teeth, spines, multiple tentacles, or venom. Completely alien world down there.
1 x
Bellum Omnium Contra Omnes is rapidly becoming a reality (11/2023). Para Bellum.

Post Reply