It is without a doubt that the archery family is a special family. Traditional Archery even more. The last week was but another amazing example of how great this place can be.

Benjy was very kind and brought a myself and Doug Campbell from the mountains of Wyoming and Montana to the low country of South Carolina to hunt the prehistoric alligator.

I didn't really know what to expect from this hunt and Benjy did his very best to prepare us for what we would encounter. I will let Doug and Benjy their tails and I will tell you mine.

Benjy and his wife were amazing hosts. They showed us true southern hospitality. Benjy has a glow of passion for gator hunting and he really knows the game. Once you have a gator on the line its all business and he knows how to make sure you get your lizard. He is patient and deliberate. Through all the gear malfunctions we had he never missed a smile.

This hunt was more challenging than i expected. There are a few western animals that are hard to field judge. Though i am sure any are as tough as judging a gator in the dark when all you can see is his eyes and nose until you have some experience. Also I will rat myself out here and say that hitting a gator was not all that easy. I had difficulties understanding where the body was and how they posture themselves in the water. Hence, I missed several. Doug and Benjy had fun with that ha ha.

Also the dark to daylight hunting schedule is backwards for a western guy. I was pretty beat by the time we had mine in the boat.

The hunt basically works like this, you travel the river systems according to the tide and shine the gators eyes. They glow bright red as if they are rubies. What I found really interesting about the eyes is you have to be holding the light or directly behind it to see the glow. There was no angular reflection at all. Nor could you determine anything about the size of the gator from the glow. Then you approach slowly in a stalk so to speak. You do your best to determine size and make a decision on whether to shoot or not(you have about 1 second to do that). There are tricks to estimating size from a distance such as location. The smaller gators normally stay to the bank and the larger ones often cruised the channel.

Our first night we saw a lot of gators. Many in the 7-9 foot range.I was not successful that evening at anything other than making a few splashes and learning a lot about gators and gator hunting.  

More to follow lots to do today.

Gaiter huntin in September  

This should be good!

Definitely a different kind of story from Randy, but I am all in!

 

Should be an interesting story.....  

      Looking forward to the rest.

I've seen the hero pics, but I have a feeling the story will be even better!

Congratulations      
 

I have been slow. With gator to clean a wife take to the mountains for the fall colors and what ever else life throws.

Doug and I rolled up to Benjy's house around 6 in the evening on Sunday. Benjy put us to work getting ready to hunt almost immediately.

We set up bows and loaded the boat with water and snacks. Then hit the road. With a two hour drive to the boat landing Benjy took the time to set our expectations and prepare us for the hunt.

Here we go  

What's a scalligator?   :-)

Looking forward to the rest of the story.

All of Wyoming is waiting on this story...well, me, anyway.

I cant seem to get two minutes to myself lately.

Once on the water is was not long before we were in the gators. It was very difficult to judge anything about them from any distance. Their eyes all glow the same and the reflections on the water can make it very tough to know what you are looking at.

When you shine a gator it is obvious. The eyes jump out of the dark swamp night like battery powered rubies.

We made our way from gator to gator looking for a good one. We missed chances at a few and I was to slow on others in the 8-9 foot range. We saw one gator that was only about 20inches. We were not lacking for variety. As I mentioned before I struggled a little hitting a gator well for a couple of reasons including a misunderstanding of how the hang in the water, tangled line in the real and maybe just plain missing. I was able to get a couple shots on gators that first night before Doug and I switched.

I got some boat driving lessons, well really they gave me a pretty hard time for my ability to get the boat sideways and backwards.      I learned the outgoing tide is a beast to work with when you are more used to driving a horse.


He quickly showed he was learning from my mess ups. He also had some equipment issues as well but that is how it goes sometimes. He sure made up for it in grand fashion though. As the sun shed light on the water I had a lot on my mind about the nights events. I was very disappointed in myself and so excited and happy to be in such an awesome place with great friends.

The next night we hit the water as a team once again. We got there a little earlier than the night before. With a front moving through the movement was different than the previous evening. The first night we saw less the 5 gators under 6 feet. This night though we could not get away from them.

Countless times we could see 2 and 3 gators at a time. We traversed back and forth across the river trying find one of quality.

We hit a long dead time. Benjy and Doug took the 45 minute slow spell as a prime opportunity to light up a cigar. In the back of a river system we didn't know we finally found a giant. The biggest gator of the trip. 10+ feet. Though it was not meant to be as he didn't give us the opportunity.

As we started out to get ahead of the tide we found a seemingly large gator swimming in the middle of the river. Something Benjy had told us from the beginning was normally a good sign. Dough took the helm and Benjy manned the video as we attempted to get close enough for a shot.

It took a while as he seemed to have a mission in mind. As we closed the gap though Benjy and Doug both assured he was a shooter. Guessing him in the 8 foot range I readied for a shot. I drew to anchor and let it fly. The gator splashed and rolled as line spooled out of the reel and the float took off across the water.

I wish I would have known you guys were going to be that close.... would have went out of my way just to shake y'alls hand again

Once the line spools out and the float is out it takes a team to finish the work. Benjy loves this part as he quickly sets to work getting more floats and making sure we don't loose sight of the one that's out.

I set up another arrow and float and stood ready as Doug handled the driving and Benjy attempted to pull him to the surface. Several times he would be close then run a distance and we would begin again. Over the course of some time we got him to the surface and I was able to get another arrow in him. It was not long and we had him in the boat. A prehistoric beast no doubt.



As we headed back for the landing I thought about the experience I just had. I don't think you could do this alone and I don't really think you would want to. This is most certainly a hunt where you give credit to those you are with as they are just as much a part of the experience and the success as the one with the tag. For me that makes it an even more special and cherished memory.

This picture is the most important one to me of this whole trip.