A Couple of Dragons

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Fun stuff. In the late 1920s my grandfather was working as a commercial fisherman on lake Okeechobee. After a hurricane he was hiking along the shore carrying a new ax-handle for the ax at the fish camp. He came upon a gator skull that had been uncovered by the storm. It was precisely one 36" ax-handle between the eye sockets. Dragons indeed! Maybe those early Spanish explorers weren't exaggerating about the monsters they encountered.
 
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  • #29
cory said:
What's a snatch hook. Which route did you take?
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It's just a big treble hook, a very large version of what fishing lures are equipped with, used either on a big fishing rod or a hand line. You cast it over the gator and give it a big snatch. The hook rarely goes in past the barb though because of the tough hide. You have to keep the line tight or the hook will just fall out. We rarely use a snatch hook. They harpooned these two. We use a ten foot pole with a detachable point on the end with a line and float attached. You try to drive the point into a softer spot in the hide, usually from the shoulder to the jowl on the side. Then the fight is on. A big one will blow out, take line and float for quite a ride, looks like a scene from "Jaws". You go to the float, put pressure on him, he'll usually take off and you do it over again. Sometimes the fight will last quite a while. When he's finally boat side he may roll, bite the boat, the float and whatever he can get those powerful jaws around. We use a .44 mag bangstick to seal the deal. You still have to hit him just right, we had a gent from Kentucky bang a big one on top of the skull and the bullet flattened out like a piece of tin foil and we had to do it again. He couldn't believe it and saved the flattened bullet for a souvenir.
 
That's some wild stories, Limbrat. Why aren't you allowed to shoot em with a hunting rifle, get it over with quick?

Justin, that was a crazy-big gator!
 
I don't know what boats you are using, but is it possible to be overturned by a gator, as in a whaling long boat and Moby Dick?
 
Call me whatever you like but I find the sight of such great animals strung up behind grinning fools who killed them for pleasure.... shameful.
 
Some people feel that way but a point to ponder .Of the balance of nature mankind is a part of the process .

Hunting ,fishing the general capture of animals for food ,pelts etc. is as old as mankind itself .It's a primevil instinct .

During the time when there was a ban in the several southern states when gator hunting was outlawed the animals became a hazard because the numbers were not kept in check .They have no natural enemies to keep the numbers in check except man .

I suppose a persons view point could have something to do with how one grew up .I was raised in rural Ohio around firearms from a very young age .Hunting ,trapping ,fishing etc was a favorite past time .

Now as far as gator hunting I want no part of it .Those big lizards could bite you right in two pieces if they wanted to .If it were I I do believe I'd use at least a 30:06 .Never gonna happen ,gator hunting and Al Smith don't fit in the same sentence
 
I grew up on a farm, helped with pheasant shoots, ferreted for rabbits etc.
Nothing against hunting per se, it's just seeing two awesome beasts strung up like that in front of two blokes shaking hands........I just don't see it as something to be proud of.
 
Butch, No Granpa didn't keep the skull. He was on foot miles from a road.....He looked and measured and went on. Different era. Now there would be pics al over the internet the same day. One other detail-there was a hole in the skull that he thought might have come from a musket ball!
 
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  • #41
La becasse said:
Call me whatever you like but I find the sight of such great animals strung up behind grinning fools who killed them for pleasure.... shameful.
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I wouldn't call you anything, you've got a right to your opinion and I respect that completely. However, calling folks you don't know a fool might raise some hackles. If you were indeed raised on a farm like I was, then you understand that we respected animals and took care of them, but we realized they were animals, not people, put here by the creator to sustain us and others. Cattle, hogs, chickens, gators, polar bears or bluegills, they are all animals. If it was a picture of a Dad shaking his son's hand while holding the boy's first fish, which was destined for the frying pan like these lizards, I just imagine there wouldn't have been a negative word said.
 
I find the whole trophy photo thing verges on the macabre, ok, you want to keep a record of the animal, but stringing them up like that? The whole triumphalism of the pic with the hand shakes and grinning..yuk.
 
I agree with labecasse.
Put on here by the creator? For us? Sounds like a total lack of respect for fellow beings on this earth. Disgusting.
 
Fellow beings would normally be addressing other humans .

Now I have no vendetta towards gators but evidently the states of Florida,Louisiana,parts of Texas and a few others have them on the wild game list .As such they are legal game if taken by the required methods .

Some states have morning doves as legal game .They are so stupid you can get them with a slingshot .No sport in that .

There are places where they commercially raise American bison .Fed like cattle and slaughtered for meat .Is that more humane than hunting them with a high powered rifle which although limited is legal in some areas .

I'll tell you what sad is .White tail deer raised in captivity .Domesticated deer are gentle as lambs .The loose all their wild instincts .They become just farm animals and I find that unacceptable .Born free they outta die free .
 
Seems to me that like with a lot of things, if you look and have seen clearly what you have done, you can decide about it for yourself. One of the great powers of man, with freedom of mind. The pics don't much seem to be asking for a moral critique. :lol:
 
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  • #49
Looks like I opened a can of worms. To be as nice as I can, a rat, a roach, a dog or an alligator is not my fellow being. I've been called most of them, but we're really not related. Everything we do on planet earth affects other living creatures. Folks pull up to Mickey D's and they don't think about the steer that had a spike driven through it's skull so they could eat a burger. If we go to putting animals on the same level as people, where does it stop? Every mile you drive you're smashing countless ants and other hapless critters. Every step you take you're crushing living things of some kind. When your dog gets fleas what do you do? If your kid picks up head lice in school, do you say, aw, they've got a right to live in your head, just leave them alone? When a virus invades your body? What about cities, subdivisions and your house that used to be wildlife habitat? The American Indians had ultimate respect for the animals they hunted and killed and they celebrated those animals in their life AND in their death. I think they still deserve that respect. As I said, if you don't like the trophy aspect, I respect that opinion and if you are an American, I would gladly fight for your right to express that opinion. If you're not, you'll have to fight your own battles.
 
It's funny when you consider the big picture here, posting images of an animal you killed, a trophy, or whatever, is really not much different that any of us posing by a stump of a tree that we just killed. Now I am not the hunter type, as killing animals does not agree with me at all, but I am sure as the hell guilty of posing by the stumps of great trees I have felled. We all have our trophies I guess. Is that what life is about?

BTW, I buy my meat at the market. Does that make my karma good? Life is so complicated.
 
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