Gator story from the JAX site. Pretty good read.
I got totally bored and stir-crazy today so I went fishing in spite of the wind and clouds. I didn’t get wet but, for a few minutes I thought I might get et.
I launched in a place I have never launched before but paddled to an area I am at least a little familiar with. Tide was high and outgoing, pretty good for where I was fishing. One rat red and a Lady Fish real quick then nothing.
A big Gator swam across the creek ahead of me but I never thought anything about it because I see Gators every trip. I entered a bay and began plugging the lee bank ahead of me, trying to keep out of the wind as much as possible. I was using the new Top-Dog copy imported by Bomber. (Mostly chartreuse)
I was in about 2’ of water, standing and poling. I came up on a patch where the bottom was all churned up, mud still boiling. About this time, I must have heard the “Jaws” theme. If I’d had any hair on my neck, it would have been standing.
About 3’ from the port outrigger was the biggest Alligator head I have ever seen at that range. He backed off a bit then began to follow about 6’ back, just out of range of my push pole. At one point, he closed the gap to about 4’ then backed off again. This was a totally new experience for me.
I looked him in the eye and said, “Buddy don’t **** with me.” Maybe I added “Please” too. At one point I compared the length of his head to my port outrigger. His head was 4X as wide and a little bit longer. (I need to measure the outrigger to make an estimate.)
This went on for a while until I grounded on a log, stopping forward progress and my heart. Intense puckerfactor, indeed! He was about 10 feet back.
The Gator was wading at this point and rose way up, darn near out of the water. I was sure it was gonna get messy so I fed him the chartreuse Top Dog copy. He scarfed it up as soon as it hit the water.
When I set the hooks, all hell broke loose. He lost all desire for my scrawny body and darn near yanked me out of the
hahahahaaha