Orange Lake Florida Gator Adventure

[Chris Surtees]

Opening night proves to be very eventful with lots of gators and gator hunters on the water.

I must say that even with all the boats on the water the first night there was no issues with being on top of each other.

If a hunter was in a area other boats gave them a good distance so not to disturb their hunting. Very impressive to say the least.

As the night goes on we are only seeing smaller gators up to maybe five feet.

Finally we move in on some eyes and I hear the the bow go off. The shot went high as when a gator submerges it tends to slide backwards a little.

No worries as we have three more nights of hunting.

Hunting quickly resumes and no more shooter are seen on the first night.

We decide to call it at 0530.

[Chris Surtees]

We leave a little early on the second evening so my dad can get some bowfishing in on the way to the lake.

Needless to say there will be no pictures of gar as they give my dad as much trouble as they do me.

I found this rather comical since I have never put an arrow into one of the little pencils either.

Next year this will all change though!

[23feetupandhappy]

[Chris Surtees]

Second night starts out much like the first with only seeing smaller gators.

It was a fun night but the large gators would not let us get close enough for a shot.

We did see several good ones from a distance but no shots were taken.

Then around 0530 that all changed...we were in a bunch a little gators when we spotted a lone set up eyes in the middle of a opening in the lilly pads.

As we moved in a could see it was not a large gator but appeared to be around 6 feet so I told my dad to take the shot if he wanted.

He drew back and made a perfect shot on the gator. The line stripped out and then the float went into the water.

Since we were only in about 6 feet of water I was not worried about the gator pulling the float under so we set out getting the catching equipment ready.

Once set we moved into position and pull in the float in.

This gator came in really nicely until his head broke the surface. I wish we could have gotten some video or pictures of it but this guy had our complete attention.

Once subdued the gator was pulled into the boat, taped, and tagged.

Turned out this one was a little smaller than we thought coming in just under 6 feet.

[Chris Surtees]

We then headed back to the cabin and started cleaning the gator.

Notice it is daylight! We left for the river at 1815 the day prior.

This was a long night but neither of us would have had it any other way.

Ended up getting about 15 pounds of meat of the gator and when skinned ended up with what is going to be a nice piece off the back for a quiver, what is going to be a nice but small tail quiver, and some good sections for knife sheaths and accessories.

[Arrowslinger]

Way to go.  Chris thanks for the story.  Looking forward to seeing both of you at the hunting camp.

[Chris Surtees]

Same here Jeff...

This is only half the story we still had two more nights and another tag so my dad was far from being done.

[rastaman]

Nice looking boat you got there Chris! Dang that gator "looks" bigger than 6 feet!  Great job Larry!  

[Ray_G]

     

Great story of a fun hunt, Chris!  I smiled all the way through, thinking of you and your Dad cruising along.

Great photos, too.  I miss cruising the St. Johns, seeing the water turkeys, uncountable number of coots, egrets, etc. and gator tail!

[Arrowslinger]

[JEFF B]

way cool Bro!!!!  

[Chris Surtees]

The third hunt was pretty much like the first two with us only seeing small gators up until after about 0130.

It seemed that when most of the boats left the water the larger gators started more out in larger numbers.

Dad passed on a gator about 5.5 feet and we started towards the next set.

He calls back to me that it is small and then I see a large gator come to the surface right next to the boat. I start trying to direct my dad to the location but he started looking the wrong direction and by the time he started looking on the left side of the boat he was scanning too far out.

Needless to say with all the commotion he went under rather quickly.

Next we start moving towards another section of pads that a couple gators where lying in.

We made a few passes through some other sections of pads seeing only small gators and having others submerge before we could close the distance on them.

Towards the end of the hunt dad missed a larger gator...this time not from backsliding as it submerged but because it turned as it went under.

[rastaman]

[Chris Surtees]

Finally on the last hunt we closed the distance on a really nice gator. This one had to be somewhere in the ten foot.

We made it with yards of the gator and as my dad drew the gator started going under. He underestimated the speed at which the gator was submerging and shot right over it's nose.

That became the topic of conversation for the rest of the hunt.

For the next couple hours we only were able to get close the small gators until we were heading back the mouth of the creek.

As we were moving through a channel in the pads my dad caught eyes closing in front of us. This gator was moving fast than normal trying to get into the pads before we got to close.

He made a fatal mistake and stayed in the channel too long. As he started going under my dad remembered the lessons taught by the others he has missed and shot lower this time.

At the shot I seen the gator go under the boat and yelled you have him.

My dad thought he had missing as the one just went the bottom and did not run. He then manually pulled the line from the reel and threw the float in the water.

We then gathered up the equipment to subdue him and went back to retrieve the float.

This fella decided he wanted to bury himself in the grass at the bottom of the lake so it took us longer to get him off the bottom.

He was no where as active as the first gator my dad shot and getting him under control and it to the boat was easy.

This gator was shot at 0500 and came in at about 6.5 feet.

[IndianaBowman]

Keep it coming Chris!  This is great stuff. I was South of you around Okeechobee and we took 4 nice gators.  The really big gators don't get big by being dumb.

[Chris Surtees]

If anyone has ever had the though of doing a do it yourself gator hunt it is possible.

[Chris Surtees]

Terry,

You are spot on about the big ones getting big by not being dumb.

For being the top of the food chain they sure know when to get out of dodge.

Talking with some of the locals they feel the later hunts are better for taking the big guys...of course they use other methods of hunting them which seemed to be more productive for taking the larger gators.

[IndianaBowman]

Chris, you and I are of the same ilk when it comes to gator hunting. We enjoy hunting them basically as spot and stalk. If it was only about taking a big gator, we could have all taken 10 foot plus gators in about half a night.  Lots of guys on air boats harpooning them at 30 MPH or snagging them with grappling hooks. Some even shot them with crossguns.

[northern fisher]

Really enjoyed tagging along with you and your dad on this hunt.Congrats and thanks for sharing with us.

[tippit]

Chris & Larry,
Great hunt!  I can't wait to give that a try with ya'll...Benjy did ya hear me     Didn't get drawn for SC gators but building points...Doc