Latest / The MeatEater Podcast / Ep. 941: The Life and Times of a Gator Man

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Ep. 941: The Life and Times of a Gator Man · The MeatEater Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: This is the meat-eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten,
• 0:14
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• 0:35
  Speaker 1: That's F-I-R-S-T.com. L-I-T-E dot com. Welcome, everybody. Today I'm joined
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: by Florida man, Captain Bob Stafford, like the actual Florida man.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: When you see a headline that says Florida man, this guy,
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  Speaker 1: Captain Bob Stafford. In all seriousness, Bob Stafford's a guide.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: He guides in Lake Okeechobee, Florida. He guides for ducks.
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  Speaker 1: Largemouth bass, crappies.
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  Speaker 2: Snipe.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Snipe. But we're here to talk about one of the
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: things he does, which he's a gator hunter. Guides gator
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  Speaker 1: hunts in Okeechobee, Lake Okeechobee. I met Bob. I've been
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  Speaker 1: thinking about talking to this man for many years because
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  Speaker 1: I met you maybe six, five years ago. About six
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  Speaker 1: years ago. We were out. And I was doing a
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  Speaker 1: different unrelated work project. Kind of like ancillary to the
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: stuff I do. Kind of ancillary to what I do
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  Speaker 1: at Meat Eater. But we were working on a project
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  Speaker 1: and we were out in Lake Okeechobee and we were
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  Speaker 1: shooting tilapia with bows and arrows one night. And we
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  Speaker 1: were in Bob's, your buddy's airboat. Yeah. You clarified it
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  Speaker 1: was not this airboat. No, this one was being worked on.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: It was your buddy's airboat. And we were talking a
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  Speaker 1: bunch about gators. And what stuck in my head is
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  Speaker 1: he was telling me about baiting gators with chickens. And
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: it's burrowed in my head. And we became kind of like,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: you know, text message friends. And I had planned on,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: anticipated that I was like, someday I'm going to come
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: down and go gator hunting with you, which I've never done.
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  Speaker 1: And it's funny because More than any other, you know,
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  Speaker 1: you get a question like, have you ever done blank?
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Have you ever done blank? For questions for me, it
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  Speaker 1: would be the number one thing people say to me is,
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  Speaker 1: have you ever gone gator hunting? More than any other
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  Speaker 1: like kind of animal. I'm not kidding you. Have you
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: ever gone gator hunting? And my answer is always no.
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  Speaker 1: And I kind of wanted to remedy that. But I
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  Speaker 1: had in my head that when I remedied that, I
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  Speaker 1: was going to remedy it with you because I got
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: a kick out of talking to you. And the chicken
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: thing stuck in my head. So finally, here we are.
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  Speaker 1: And we got some gators yesterday. We got like a, well,
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  Speaker 1: one of the gators we got was 11 feet, seven inches.
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  Speaker 1: A friend of mine, another Florida man, I texted it
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  Speaker 1: to him and he said, that's a gator of a
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  Speaker 1: lifetime or a lifetime gator or something to that effect. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: It's like catching a 10 pound bass.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. So we got a big old gator. Um, But
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  Speaker 1: I want to go back to, in terms of your
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: experiences with gators and the market of gators and gator hunting,
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  Speaker 1: you're involved in all kinds of gator businesses. Gator eggs,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: wild gator egg collection, baby gator collection. This is sanctioned stuff,
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  Speaker 1: not law-breaking stuff.
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  Speaker 2: No, it's all completely licensed.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, licensed activities. But in getting into this, I want to...
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  Speaker 1: Step back first, and can you explain what, like, when
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: you were being brought up, what year were you born?
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  Speaker 2: I was born in 59. Okay, 1959.
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  Speaker 1: When you were brought up and you were a little kid,
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  Speaker 1: and back then, like, gators were protected by the Endangered
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  Speaker 1: Species Act. Yeah. When you were a little kid, what
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  Speaker 1: was your awareness of, of gators? How were people in
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  Speaker 1: your community? How did they view alligators? Like, like what
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  Speaker 1: are kind of your early memories about alligators and how
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  Speaker 1: alligators and man interacted?
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  Speaker 2: Well, a lot of it was my, my father was, uh, uh,
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  Speaker 2: he was a fishing guide also, but he was a
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  Speaker 2: sport fish captain, but he didn't like the ocean as
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  Speaker 2: much when he had free time. We spent a lot
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  Speaker 2: of time in the Everglades and on Lake Okeechobee. And
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  Speaker 2: we lived south down by Fort Lauderdale and Pompano. And
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  Speaker 2: he also, the Game Commission has a big part of
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  Speaker 2: it because there was this place that's not even there anymore.
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  Speaker 2: It was a place called Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge. And
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  Speaker 2: there was a building and a store there. And they
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  Speaker 2: literally had programs where these game wardens would come for
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  Speaker 2: kids and all and show videos of the Everglades and games.
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  Speaker 2: alligators and stuff like that. And I just took a
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  Speaker 2: shine to it, you know, and I just loved being
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  Speaker 2: in the Everglades. My dad brought me up out there
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  Speaker 2: running the little kicker boats, duck hunting. And, you know,
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  Speaker 2: and that's, that's kind of where it started. I just,
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  Speaker 2: I love the Everglades. I love Lake Okeechobee. It's all,
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  Speaker 2: it's all, it all used to be all connected, you know,
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  Speaker 2: until they diked everything in and separated everything.
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  Speaker 1: Yep.
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  Speaker 2: Okeechobee was really the top of the Everglades.
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  Speaker 1: When they were an ESA animal, so even back then,
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  Speaker 1: let's say around 1960, you'd have been kind of old
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  Speaker 1: enough to know what was going on. Sorry, 1970, you'd
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: have been old enough to know what's going on. Was
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  Speaker 1: it rare to see one? No, they were around, but
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  Speaker 1: there weren't as many then. Uh-huh.
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  Speaker 2: Because we used to wade fish in Lake Okeechobee, and
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  Speaker 2: there wasn't that many gators. When I was growing up
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  Speaker 2: in my adolescent years, even teenage years, there wasn't that many.
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  Speaker 2: I was not afraid to jump in the water. We
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  Speaker 2: didn't have trolling motors and stuff then. Tie a rope
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  Speaker 2: on my waist and drag my boat around with my
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: dad fishing for bass. I wouldn't do that now because
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: the program they had, it really worked.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: It didn't start opening up until 1988 when it became legal.
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  Speaker 2: They started allowing alligator hunting.
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  Speaker 1: Did you jump right into it in the 80s? It
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  Speaker 1: was 88 when they opened it up?
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  Speaker 2: I tried to apply for permits the first year, and
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  Speaker 2: it was different back then. I didn't get them. I
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  Speaker 2: didn't know much about it at that point. I always
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  Speaker 2: messed with gators.
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  Speaker 1: My dad was.
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  Speaker 2: Always mad at me because I would catch them, bring
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: them home. My dad was always mad, but I've always
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  Speaker 2: been fascinated with alligators.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, because at that time, they had been protected
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  Speaker 1: for so long. There wasn't like a... So it was
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  Speaker 1: 1988 when they opened it up. Yeah. They'd been protected
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  Speaker 1: so long. There wasn't sort of like a class or
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  Speaker 1: an existing community of gator hunters. No, there was no
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  Speaker 1: gator hunting. Yeah. So what did that look like as
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  Speaker 1: people all of a sudden were like, man, we're allowed
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  Speaker 1: to go get some of these? What did it look
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  Speaker 1: like for people that were going out and trying to
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  Speaker 1: learn how to do it? Well, they did it.
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  Speaker 2: They made a class when they started to teach people
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  Speaker 2: how to do it. But what happened is a lot
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  Speaker 2: of the people, because when they first came out, they
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  Speaker 2: were given 15 alligator tags to one person.
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  Speaker 1: Okay.
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  Speaker 2: Nobody was guiding for hunts. And the hide buyers were
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  Speaker 2: really wanting the hides because there wasn't hardly any gator
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  Speaker 2: farms and stuff.
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  Speaker 1: Okay. Yeah. So.
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  Speaker 2: People started seeing dollar signs on them that's one thing
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  Speaker 2: that turns me off with alligator hunting because everybody that
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  Speaker 2: gets tags or now even now they see dollar signs
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  Speaker 2: they think they're gonna get rich off of alligators.
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  Speaker 1: Because at a time it was good money.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah well yeah because they were getting 60 to 80
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  Speaker 2: dollars a foot for a hide.
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  Speaker 1: And if you applied for a permit in those days
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  Speaker 1: like now in this area i don't know about everywhere
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  Speaker 1: but i know that the permit we applied for in
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  Speaker 1: this area If you draw the permit, you get two
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  Speaker 1: alligator tags. Yeah. But back then, if you drew it,
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  Speaker 1: it's 15 gator tags. Yeah. And gators were worth how
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  Speaker 1: much a foot?
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  Speaker 2: Like $ 60 to $ 80 for the hide. And plus, you
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  Speaker 2: got meat, too. But you weren't allowed to sell the
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  Speaker 2: meat unless it went through a licensed processor.
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  Speaker 1: But if you had, in those days, if you got
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  Speaker 1: 15 gator tags, like... Was it full of huge gators?
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  Speaker 1: I mean, could guys honestly go out and make like
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  Speaker 1: a sizable chunk of money killing 15 gators and selling
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  Speaker 1: the leather?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, they were not trophy hunting like what we were
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  Speaker 2: doing on our deal. They were going out and getting
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  Speaker 2: six to eight footers.
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  Speaker 1: I see.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, I didn't get involved in it at that point.
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  Speaker 2: You know, I still wanted to. I didn't get picked
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  Speaker 2: the first few years.
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  Speaker 1: I see, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: But I'd see guys on gas stations in an airboat
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  Speaker 2: and gators just piled up.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, they're 15, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, they might not get all 15, but they had six, eight,
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  Speaker 2: ten gators. And you had to sit on your hides
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  Speaker 2: and wait for the hide validation program where they'd have
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  Speaker 2: a meeting and the people would inspect the hides and
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  Speaker 2: bid on them and pay you the money for them then.
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  Speaker 1: So what was the first year that you were able
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  Speaker 1: to go on a gator hunt?
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  Speaker 2: Probably around the early 90s, maybe 90, 92 is when
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  Speaker 2: I finally started.
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  Speaker 1: And they started cutting the tag numbers back. Oh, really? Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So they started giving more tags out, more licenses. out
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  Speaker 2: to more people, but cut the numbers that you could
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  Speaker 2: get back.
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  Speaker 1: Got it. And in those days, when you started there,
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  Speaker 1: in those days, was it still like a commercial endeavor
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  Speaker 1: for people to go gator hunting? For me, it wasn't.
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  Speaker 1: I started out just, I really wasn't a guide then. Yep.
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  Speaker 2: I just started because I love gators. I started hunting gators.
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  Speaker 2: And then people knew that I hunted gators.
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  Speaker 1: And it's weird.
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  Speaker 2: It's like an evolution the way we hunted them. In
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  Speaker 2: the beginning, we would take airboats with harpoons with a
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: buoy on a rope. And then you would just shine
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: the light. And the gators were not used to it.
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  Speaker 2: You could run right over to the gator and throw
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  Speaker 2: the harpoon. And the buoy would go out. And you'd
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: turn around, go pull them in, bang, stick them, and
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: go get another one.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: That was the early days. Yeah, that was the early days.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: And then after a few years of that, alligators evolved too.
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  Speaker 1: They started getting smart.
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  Speaker 2: You start an airboat up and every gator within a
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: half a mile would go down.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: That was the thing that surprised me over spending a
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: couple days with you all was... I should say surprised
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: because I didn't think about it before, but an observation
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  Speaker 1: I had and you validated it was that they are
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: very aware that they're being hunted. Yes. And they are skittish. Yes.
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  Speaker 1: And they see a boat come around the bend of
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  Speaker 1: the river and the big ones are like, I'm out. Yep.
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  Speaker 1: And the little ones that haven't been around long don't know.
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  Speaker 2: If you're going around a river bend and the big
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  Speaker 2: gator hears you, he's going down before you even come
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  Speaker 2: around the bend.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's funny to think about at a time
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  Speaker 1: that they wouldn't have had that response. Yeah. No. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: They wouldn't.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: You could just ride right up to them.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Every once in a while you can do it now,
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  Speaker 2: but I'm not that good at harpooning. I don't like
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: it as much. You know, that's why I hunt the
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: way I do.
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  Speaker 1: What did you do with the first gators you got?
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  Speaker 1: When you started getting some tags and stuff, what were
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: you doing with them?
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  Speaker 2: I wasn't even selling the hides. We were just like
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: cleaning them ourselves. We would do our own processing. We
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: would skin them ourselves, you know, and then cut the
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: meat up. We would keep the meat for ourselves and
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: salt the hides and get the hides tanned from a tannery.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Got it.
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  Speaker 2: I didn't really get involved in selling the gators like
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: they did in the beginning.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Got it. Yeah, and you were telling me, like, walk
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: through how you used to, like, another... Another thing that
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: I shouldn't say surprised, but I hadn't thought about it
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: before is I'm very aware of if you kill a deer, right?
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: You got a real problem on your hands when it's
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: hot out. Yeah. Like you got to get deer cooled off. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And I don't know, man, I hadn't really thought about that.
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  Speaker 1: And all of a sudden you got this 300, 400
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: pound reptile. It's 90 degrees out. It's like an issue.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's a major issue. If you want to do
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: something with the hides and it's hot out, the scales
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: will start flaking off. Like you saw that one in
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: the office the other day where they didn't take care
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: of it right. And the meat could go bad. So
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: you had to get it cooled off right away.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you used to tell people that you used
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: to use a canoe.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I had an old canoe and an ice machine.
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  Speaker 2: We were only killing two a night when they got
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: down to the two per license. I would bring them home.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: We'd be tired because we were hunting all night. In
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: the beginning, you had to hunt at night. It was
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: like a half hour before sunset to a half hour
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: after sunrise.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Oh, that was the rule. Yeah, that was the rule.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: It might have been an hour. I don't remember.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: But either way, I would come over here, put them
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: in the cooler, and bury them in ice and go
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: try to get a couple hours of sleep. And then
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: you wake up during gator season. It's in the 90s
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: usually every day. So I'd take one at a time
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: and try to clean them as fast as I could
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: and then get salt on the hides right away. And
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: still some of the scales would.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Slip.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: We call it slipping.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: And were you guys, were you selling some of that
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: gator meat? No, I never did. Giving away to friends
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: and stuff.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: You know, when I first started doing it, I didn't
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: have a bunch of money and I couldn't afford to
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: bring them to a processor. So we did it all ourselves.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Just made it. What was the, I had no
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: idea until you just said it right now. Because I
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: know a lot of your old gator hunting stories are
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: night stories. Yeah. Yeah. I had no idea that it
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: was that you were supposed to hunt at night.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: I don't even know what the reasoning was in the beginning.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: I swear.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: It was like the movie, The Jaws. That Jaws movie.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: We would go to the boat ramp and we would
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: have to drive through protesters spitting on our trucks.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: The game wardens were there.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: Trying to make sure, you know, they had signs screaming
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: at us where, you know, if you think you're macho,
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: go kill a gator with a knife, you know, without
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: a boat. I mean, they were screaming all kinds of
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: stuff at us. You know, it was just, you know,
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: I don't know why the knife thing was. I think
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: they did it because they didn't want people seeing us
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: doing it. I don't know.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: I don't know what the reasoning was. Talk about that evolution.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Like you said, in the early days, Guys are throwing
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: harpoons from airboats.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's still guys that do it that are
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: really good at it. I've never been that great at it. So,
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: you know, I learned how to, I'm a fisherman and
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: I can cast good. And I started learning how to
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: snag them with treble hooks. And it gets hard to
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: do that too. Like they keep going down, you know,
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: you have to just keep fan casting. And sometimes you
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: get lucky, sometimes you wouldn't.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: But how do you know, If you're watching a gator
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: 100 yards down the river and the gator goes under,
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: how do you even begin to have an idea where
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: to cast?
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: Well, you got to kind of watch the way they
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: go down. If they go down and their nose is
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: up there and they just go down easy backwards like that,
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: they're usually going right down and laying on the bottom.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: They know they're safe there. And that's when we would
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: fan a cast. But like If they blow really hard,
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: then they take off fast, and, you know, your chances
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: of snagging them are slim.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Got it. Yeah, tell people the setup you use to
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: snag a gator.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I just use, like, I use bait casting kind
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: of reels, bigger ocean reels, but we use, like, a
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: 150 to 200-pound test line with a weighted treble hook
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: on it and try to throw it over them. We
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: try to get over their neck if we can. You
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: want to hook them 50% from the body to the,
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: forward okay if you hook them in the back it
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: makes it a harder fight you're dragging the just like
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: tail hooking up fish you know it's a harder fight yeah.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: And when you do that i never like i saw
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: you do it but you're casting out you're retrieving real
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: slow and eventually just feel the hook find its spot
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: and then.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it depends on if they're laying on the bottom
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: or if they're on the top. If they're on the top,
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: I don't reel slow. I try to reel fast. I
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: want the gator to be there and the hooks here.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: I want to set the hook when it's getting close.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: I don't want them to feel it. I want to
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: drive it into them really fast.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Because he's going to explode.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you'll get a better hook set. But if
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: they're on the bottom, you literally have to reel slow.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: until you see them and then you got to hope
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: it's not a rock or a log but you know
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: and set the hook.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah as hard as you can and you messed around
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: in the past like i know that that's your preferred
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: way now is running the rods with snagging hooks but
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: you've messed around in the past all kinds of ways
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: of hunting.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: Gators yeah i know like that's what i was saying
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: it's an evolution like i mean the guy that runs
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: our local uh processing plant he actually helped me a
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: bunch when i was really starting to guide and get
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: into it and and i'm like man i I'm just
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: having a hard time getting these bigger gators. I got
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: into bow hunting with a crossbow. We did that at night.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: In the beginning when we did it, we were like
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: the only ones out there. We would make our lights red.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: I'd take a red magic marker on an aircraft landing light.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: And we'd make our own.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: There's a light right here. Make your own red light.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we would just go around. It was really tricky.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: You couldn't shine the light right at the gator. You
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: want to shine it above them. I would cut like
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: a beer can or a Coke can so that the
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: halo wouldn't be as bright on the bottom. And he
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: hold it like on a, maybe a 20 degree angle
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: over top of me. You're shining the beam up. I've
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: never been in the woods. If somebody's shining a light
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: at you, you can't tell if they're 10 feet or
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: 10 miles away. And that's if you just take it
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: really slow and you can't have anybody else shining lights around.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: Then we would just trolling motor close with a crossbow.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: With that thing lit by kind of the periphery of
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: the light.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're just wanting to barely see the little bit
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: of red in their eye. And I would not touch
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: it on them at all until I got within range
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: of shooting a crossbow at them. And then when they
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: were ready, I would lower it down on the thing
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: and then you could shoot the crossbow.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: At what distance?
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: From 30 yards in. We could shoot from 30 yards in,
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: and we made our own arrows, and we had our
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: own broomstick with a little float.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: And out of that crossbow, how are you attached, and
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: how are you running a line attached to that bolt?
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: We would just take the fiberglass fish bolts, get a
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: piece of aluminum arrow that slid over it perfectly, and
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: epoxy that in there, and epoxy a half-moon knock.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: In the end of it. Yep.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: And then we would drill a hole in the side
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: of the aluminum. and into the thing. And I would
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: epoxy a swivel in there with the ring sticking out.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: So you could run the line through the swivel down
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: to like a muzzy point or like those points I
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: use for the harpoons. So it was removable. Like the
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: arrow would go into the gator and it would fall off,
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: but it was on your line.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: And then you had them on a buoy.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: Whatever we do has to have a line attached. You
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: can't just shoot an arrow at a gator without a
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: line on it.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: That's the law part. And what was that line then on,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: an external spool? Yeah, I was using Zebco 808s. Okay.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: It was a friend of mine that was really good
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: at it. He really coached me in it, and I
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: started getting pretty good at it. But that was hard hunting.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: You were like, you'd get out at dark, and you
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: were watching the sun come up. I mean, a lot
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: of stuff could go wrong. those sometimes if the line
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: dried out you know before we even hunt we would
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: shoot it into the water get the line wet and
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: reel it back up okay make it all moist and
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: all and then if we went too long or didn't
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: reel up right sometimes it would shoot out it would
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: break the line and you would lose the whole rig
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: sure yeah or if the a lot of times my
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: customers would shoot at what they could see i try
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: to coach them you can't shoot at the what you
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: can see because you're seeing the head You have to visualize, like,
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: behind the head where the valley is. That's what we
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: call it. You'll see the back and the head, and
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: there'll be a little valley.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: You want to aim at the valley. If the arrow
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: hit the water in front of it, it was perfect
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: because it would level out like a torpedo and just
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: hub up right in them.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: And that would.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: Be the best shot.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: But nine times out of ten, people would shoot at
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: the head. It would skip off the head, and you'd
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: lose another arrow.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: Yep. Why did you guys move away from that crossbow-style hunting?
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: Because everybody started doing it, and it was getting harder. Like,
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden, we're going out gator hunting, you know,
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: and that's when I was really starting to get into guiding.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: Then everybody and their brothers, there's red lights everywhere. Gators
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: were getting really spooky. They evolved with the harpooning deal,
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: and then they started learning about the red lights, and
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: they got light shy.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Oh, okay. You could hit a gator.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: a quarter of a mile away with your light, zoom, gone.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: Got it, got it.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: It was just hard.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: It's like a gator arm race.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we had to figure out something else.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: What'd you move to from there? We moved to baiting then.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: You know, I was for years thinking about there's got
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: to be a better way. There's got to be a
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: better way. And it wears you out. My wife would
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: answer my phone for me because I was nocturnal. I
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: would be up all night gator hunting, and I'd sleep
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: most of the day.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: Uh-huh.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: So I'm like talking to the once again, that processor.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: And there was these two old guys that kept bringing
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: in these huge gators all the time to the processor.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, I'm like, what in the world are
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: they doing? He said, Bob, they're doing something with chicken.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, really?
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: He goes, I think they're putting spray foam in them.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: I'm like, really? And then a light bulb went off
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: in my head because I'd been playing around with bait.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: But I was taking pieces of conduit out in the
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: lake with a sledgehammer and pounding conduit into the bottom
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: of the lake and attaching with a clothespin or something,
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: hanging pieces of chicken out. But I'd have gators swim
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: right up to it. I'm like, oh, here we go,
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: here we go. And they swim up to it and
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: see the metal and look at the device we had there,
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: and then they didn't have nothing to do with it.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: So they're smart enough to know something's up. Everybody thinks a.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: Gator has a pea brain size. Their brain's the size
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: of a pea. And they think they're dumb. But they're
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: not dumb. They have that God-given natural will to live.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: To see a PVC pipe or whatever in the ground,
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: there's a chunk of chicken hanging on it. He sees
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: that and he knows it ain't right.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I mean, in a way, I think that's
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: part of it. But like the catfish guys that put
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: the big trot lines out, They don't like them. My
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: other buddy that bass guides with us, he kept telling us,
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: they have little buoys with these little flags like they
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: use in sprinkler companies or whatever. It's a little metal flag.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: They put it on there where they can see their buoy.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: To mark their catfish trot lines.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: For them, the gators are tuning in on that. They'll
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: go right to it. I don't know. They're just smarter
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: than we think.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: They'll go and work over those. Catfish trot lines. Yes.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: My younger son, James, we watched one one day. It
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: was a big gator. The lake was low. It was
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: like three foot deep. And there was a really long catfish.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: We were bass fishing, watching this. This big gator was
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: literally backing up down the trot line. He would get
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: to the fish. He would go under. He would come up,
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: throw his head up, chomp that fish, rip it off
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: the hook. And then he would start backing up to
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: the next one. And the catfish guys hate them because
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: their lines are extremely long. And when they get out there,
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: they're all tangled up in big knots and you know,
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: they almost have to redo the whole entire thing.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: Okay. So, so continue that story of the, that you
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: were trying that you were trying staking the bait out
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: and hanging it from something. Yeah, I did that for
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: a while.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: And then, and yeah, I, I, It was later on
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: when that man told me, oh, I think they're spray
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: foaming them and sewing a chicken up. And I'm like, wow.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: It just went off in my head. So when I
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: first started doing it, I was using regular-sized chickens. But
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: when you put the spray foam in, they just went
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: too big. I mean, if you want a really big gator,
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: it was okay. But it would have to be a
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: big gator to eat it right away. And there's a
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: lot of tricks to it. I started going to cornish
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: game hens which are small and then you could blow
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: them up and you gotta have the law is you
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: have to you can't we can't use a hook in
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: the state.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah i think it's important that people understand you're not
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: talking about a conventional j hook or a treble hook
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: buried into a chicken.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: No and i asked i asked an old timer what
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: would make the state come up with these rules like
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: this because i used to say our rules are you
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: might as well tell us to tie one hand behind
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: our back and try to catch a gator. One, we
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: got to hunt at night. Two, we can't use a
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: hook in our bait. I'm like, what's the purpose of that?
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: And he said, Bob, there was this old family, trapping family.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: I knew some of them. An old man named Norman
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: Padgett and his family, they were, I'm talking about 50s,
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: 60s or whatever. They did a lot of trapping.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: They did a lot.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: They sold a lot of Gator hide, there was a
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: black market for gator hides.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: They made a living doing that.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: Poaching gators. Turtle trapping, gator trapping, you know, all that stuff. Well,
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: they said the reason they used, our rule is we
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: got to use a two-inch wooden peg, but I don't
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: know why they came up with that.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Catcher hook.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they came up with that. We'd make a leader
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: with the two-inch wooden thing. He said the reason they
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: used the wood peg is like, Bob, these guys were
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: like poor. They didn't have no money. They would go
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: kill an old marsh rabbit and go find a little
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: stick and will it down like a point on each
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: end and stick it up in the rabbit and have
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: a little tether on the end of it. And that way,
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: when the gators swallowed it, he couldn't burp it out
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: and they would catch the gator and kill it with it.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: And those guys, the game commission got them in the
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: meeting when they were starting the program. And they asked
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: them how they do it.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: And that's how they wrote it up. They said they
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: don't use a hook.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: They use this wooden peg. And according to that, man,
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: that's how it happened.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Got it.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: And to this day, we're not allowed to use a hook.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: We have to use a two-inch wooden dowel.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah. We sent one down to a gator. A Cornish
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: game hen down to a gator.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: And we were in a situation where we were able
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: to play the current. Like, we're in a river. Yeah.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: Swamp on each side. River. No one around. And we
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: knew there was a gator way down the river. And
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: we just sent that thing floating down like a presented bait. Yeah.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: And it got even with him. And, man, that sucker
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: comes out. And I thought he'd go think about it
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: for a minute or something. No, he didn't think about it.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Comes out. And you had said to me, if he
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: takes it, you'll see his tail come out and his
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: head come out as he gulps it back. And he
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: swam out. And... Yeah. Suck that thing down. Immediately. Yeah.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: We just barely got set up. Sometimes we got to
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: sit for an hour or more and mess with it.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: But that one there, he was wanting it.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So then when you do that, explain how that
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: then works out. Explain what your rig is. I know
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: you're giving away all your trade secrets here. I don't
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: really care anymore.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: I'm at the tail end of my career, and I
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: don't really care. Everybody's figuring it out. But in the beginning,
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: I was very secretive.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Uh-huh.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: And I wouldn't tell people stuff. And then when I
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: see people trying to imitate the baits we're doing, and
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: I was getting mad, like, oh, my God. Well, then
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: I realized there's more to it than just knowing how
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: to make the bait.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: There's also you got to be far enough away from
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: them where they don't think that the boat has anything
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: to do with it.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: And my old gator boat. We ran into that, too.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: We ran into it where we kind of accidentally got
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: by one. And presented that bait to him. That dude
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: was like, uh-uh, man. He wasn't having it, he's like
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: no way dude he's like he put together his head
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: like that noise up there has something to do with
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: that bait i don't want nothing to do with that bait.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: And then and then the other problem you'll have if
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: you're too close yeah sometimes they might shoot out and
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: grab it like that one we did and but they
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: won't you have to have them swallow it right away
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: yeah if they think that they got something to do
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: with the boat or it's not right They don't know
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: what it is. They'll grab the bait, and they'll turn around,
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: and they'll just start swimming. I've had them do it before.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: They'll go and go and go, and they'll swim through
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: trees or in vegetation. I've had them do it before
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: where I have to lay in the boat and just
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: dig vegetation for hours. That's probably why my back's messed up.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: I don't understand. Dig vegetation?
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: Well, we used to have really thick weeds in the lake.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: They would swim through thick hydrilla.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: There's so much. Thick hydrilla, like, I mean. Carrying that bait, yeah.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I would have to pull the line and dig, dig, dig,
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: and I could go, like, I would have somebody else
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: driving the boat. I'm laying on my belly in the
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: front just digging, digging, digging, and then I'd move the
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: boat three feet, dig, dig, dig. It might take me
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: an hour to get close enough to the gator to
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: get to him.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: And you got that rod rigged up where you got,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: how many, like, how many yards of, explain the setup.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, that's the way I do it. A
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: lot of people do it different. Some people braided line
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: is expensive and we're using line reels that hold three,
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: 400 yards of line. And the original reason I did
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: it was because I didn't want to spend all that money,
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: you know, putting that much line on the, on the reel.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: So I started, I used to do a lot of
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: ocean fishing and I used my ocean technology. I just,
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: He's 30 pound high visibility, yellow line.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: It was at night.
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: It's easy to see it with the spotlight. So at
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: the last 60 to 80 yards, I would have 150
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: pound test, like power pro line. And like when we
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: were going to get the gator, if he swallowed it,
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: you got to make sure they swallow it. I would just,
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: we would just recover the line with hardly any tension.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: Until we get all the way down onto the braid
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: and get a good, nice wrap.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're basically just tracking him when you're pulling that
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: line up. Like, he doesn't know yet something's going on. No.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, he kind of does, but you don't want
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: to put pressure. Like, I'm always telling everybody, do not
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: pressure him until we get on the main line, you know?
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: And the other advantage of that is I try to
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: tell people not to hunt on weekends. You know, we
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: have a lot of bass tournaments here. I used to
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: fish them all the time, too, but You know, we'd
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: be out set up on a gator and we're 150,
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: 200 yards away. And here comes a bass tournament and
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: all these bass boats hauling butt and they're going across
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: our line. Well, the mono would sink, you know, and
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: they would run right over it. I've never had a
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: boat hit my line. Okay. But, you know, a lot
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: of people just go straight braid all the way.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: I think there's advantages to the mono.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: And how secure, like if he takes that Cornish game in.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: and he swallows it, how secure is that thing in there?
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: It's really secure. Like that's a one-way passage. Yeah.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: I mean, very rarely I've ever had one burp it out. Yeah.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: And most of the time, if they do burp it out,
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: it's like at the end of the fight when they're
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: really tired and they're blowing air out and it's over
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: and all of.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: A sudden, bloop, the bait will pop out. Got it. Yeah.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: But I've taken a 12-footer on a table before when
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: we're cleaning it and put a welding glove on it.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: A lot of people use parachute cord, but like I said,
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: I use my old ocean technology. I use like braided
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: cable leader, probably about three foot. I took a welding
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: glove and wrapped my hand around it in the beginning
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: to see if it would come out. We opened the
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: gator's mouth and you could not pull that bait out
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: of that gator.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. That kind of like, that's kind of where
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: you landed on your strategy. Yeah. Which is, snagging hook.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah my all of a sudden i went from
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: killing mediocre gators to killing trophy gators a lot people
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: are like how are you killing all these gators yeah.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: And the new evolution now and you should talk about
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: the new evolution now it's forward-facing sonar electronics yeah yeah
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: explain that i mean you bet you're a bass fisherman
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: i mean you've always used electronics to fish.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah i mean it's People have been doing it
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: for probably three or four years now.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: I've only, this is only my second or third year
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: doing it. I still, I'm still learning. And it's some
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: places are easier than others. When you get in a
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: river or a channel where there's moving water, there's a
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: little bit of turbulence. It's, it's harder to see good
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: and more defined. But like last year it was like
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: taking candy from a baby. Like it was like three
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: to five foot deep in the lake. Um, And I
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: could find a gator like 70 to 80 yards away
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: and go all the way up to him within, I
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: would get within 30 to 50 feet and start zooming in.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: Because he thinks he's hidden. Yeah, he's not moving.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: And I've seen it before too where I hit him
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: with the hooks and they come off and they'll shoot
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: one way. I'll see the surge of the water and
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: the bubbles go. And I'll just, you know, calm down,
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: get my hook back. And I'm just kind of trolling
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: motor over there and keep looking. Sometimes my customers start yakking.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: They get bored back there. And I turn on... I
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: got two units. They can see it in the back.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: They'll all be talking, talking. I'm just up there concentrating.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: And then I'm like, hey, I'm getting ready to cast
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: on a big gator if you guys are interested.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: But the thing about that... I don't know if you
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: realize this. You probably do. In the time we... The
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: two days we just hunted. We hunted hard for two days.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: Very hard, yeah. So... I should point out that you...
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: file your treble hooks barbless. You pinch your barbs. And
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: I thought you pinched your barbs to be nice to
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: the gator, but you're pinching your barbs. One reason is
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: the skin's hard and it's hard to get it in there.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: It's hard to get a purchase on it. But I
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: want to point out that the barb was pinched. The
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: barbs were pinched. You did find a gator with forward-facing
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: sonar early on. You found a gator with it. Yeah.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: Had a good idea how big it was, hooked it,
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: we got it up, and popped the hook and let
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: it go. Yeah. The other gators, the two gators we killed,
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: and another gator we wrestled with, it didn't come into play.
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, as far as coming out?
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: No, no, I'm saying, those weren't forward-facing sonar gators.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, no, the two good ones we killed... Yeah,
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: we did it without it. We might feel good about
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: that too.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but I mean, I saw how effective it was
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: and I was getting my mind like, well, that must
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: be how it is now. Yeah. But then the way
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: circumstances played out on our other, on the gators that
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: were like the big, the big, nice gators we got,
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: how circumstances played out, it was totally old school. Yeah.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: That's why I think, I mean, the first year I
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: had it, it was the first hunt of the year.
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: I got this guy, I think he was from Ohio. Yeah.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: I hadn't even got the Scout because I just got
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: my boat rigged up. It was when I got the
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: boat we used. It was brand new. I got all
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: the electronics hooked up, and I didn't get the Scout,
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: but I know the area good. I've been killing gators
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: there for years, and I looked with my binoculars, and
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, my God. It was like a big
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: gator every 50 yards as far as you could see.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: So I turned on the sonar thing, and I'm trolling
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: over there, and I'm looking for this thing, and I
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: can't figure nothing out. I just remember saying, I've never
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: killed a gator with this electronic bull crap. I'm just
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: going back to the old way. And I troll and
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: motored over where I saw a big gator go down
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: and I threw a bait out and just troll and
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: motored away. And he came up and it was just
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: like that one you saw. He popped up, said, ooh,
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: he ate it right away. The whole hunt was over
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: in like 25 minutes.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Nowadays, how many gator hunts are you doing nowadays?
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: And I know you're actually, you're kind of half joking,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: but you keep talking about that you're not going to
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: do this forever. But how many gator hunts are you doing?
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: Right now, I think last year I killed like 16.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: And I used to kill, I didn't kill a whole
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: bunch ever. I killed like 20 to 25 a year.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: And now I'm killing like 14 to 16 a year.
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: And I don't even know if I'll hit that this year.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: So you turn business down now?
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, not really turn it down. I'm just more selective.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: A lot of my customers are repeat customers.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: But they got to draw the tag. Here's another thing
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: I'd like you to explain is how the tag, like
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: a tag holder, because getting a gator is a group effort. Oh, yeah.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: So when someone has a tag, the tag holder needs
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: to be present. But it's not like the tag holder
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: is themselves the only person participating. It's like the boat
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: has a tag holder. Because everybody in the boat is
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: going to come into play fighting the gator, right? So
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: when you have clients, you have clients who have won
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: lottery draw gator tags. That's the first step that has
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: to happen.
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: Some of them draw their own tags, and I don't
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: need a tag holder then. Sometimes I've got people that
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: want to go that don't.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: Maybe they didn't.
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: You didn't get tags this year. I didn't either, but
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: I had friends, and I put in a lot of
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: people to get them. and the tag holder has to
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: be in the boat yeah and everybody else has to
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: buy a alligator trapping agent license yeah to be legal
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: anybody touching any of the equipment has to.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: Have a license yeah so that's what we all had
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: we had that trapping agent license.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: I even have one because i don't have a trapping license.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: Got it got it um so that's what you're doing
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: now you're doing 14, 15 gators a year. I didn't
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: know this until recently, and I was kind of surprised
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: by it as well. Explain this egg thing you're involved in,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: egg collection.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know if they'll like it a whole lot.
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: They don't like publicity, but, I mean, it's all legal.
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: We just try to fly under the radar. It's almost
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: like a military operation.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: Uh-huh. We hit a lake, we're in, we're moving fast,
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: and we're out. But what, though?
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: Well, the guys that I work for have been doing
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: it since 1988 when it started. And there was one
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: of the biologists that was in the beginning. He's retired now.
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: He candles the eggs for us. And we have to
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: have a biologist from the state overseeing us to make
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: sure that we're not breaking laws in the numbers. Because
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: it's all about the money. And they're always checking the count.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: I'll make sure. It's all about the money. The state
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: makes a lot of money off of the eggs. But
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: we use airboats. We have two crews. We cover the
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: whole state, but not every body of water. Every year
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: they give us a license and we have designated lakes
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: we can go to and quotas for each lake. Some lake,
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: you could get 100% of the nest, some are 50,
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: some are 25. We have like three or four airboats
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: on each crew a pontoon boat, we call it the
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: egg boat, and a helicopter. So the helicopter has the
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: two guys that run it that have been doing it
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: since the beginning. They hire a helicopter guy and they
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: spot the mess.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: From the air.
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: And we all wear radio equipment like we got on here.
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: And they're like, I need a boat. And we got
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: to go take off and we're moving fast. We got
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: to haul butt to the helicopter. And it's in Some
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: of the places we go are not where people ride.
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: Our airboats are designed to go in places that are bad.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: We carry chainsaws, machetes, axes. We get stuck a lot.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: We got to turn around and go back out the
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: same way we came in. They look for the nest.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: The nest can be like that high. It's just piled
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: up vegetation like a dome.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: So when you held your hand up, you're saying it
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: could be four feet above the water. Yeah, three to
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: four feet.
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: So they'll find the nest, call us to them. And
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: then when we go to them, And they also have,
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: every nest has to be GPS and they keep a list.
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: They're constantly checking with the guy, the biologist on the
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: pontoon boat, where are we at with the numbers? Like
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: how many do we have? They call it in the bank.
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: Like if we break even, then we got to find
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: some more nests and not open them. But he'll tell us, hey,
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: we got 10 in the bank. Okay, so we can
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: get 10 more and we keep going. And he finds
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: some that we would, waste too much time trying to
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: get to. They're in really bad places. So he puts
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: them in the bank. But when we get there, we
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: all carry a helper. And I just carry it like
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: a parting stick for cattle. Because there's usually mama on
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: every nest. Probably about 50, 60% of the time, there's
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: no gators there. Between the helicopter noise, because sometimes the
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: helicopter comes way down low to look and make sure
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: it's a nest. And then when he calls us in,
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: he gets up a little bit and backs away because
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: their air will mess us up. He'll just sit there
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: and point out the window. We get there, then we
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: got to open up the nest. We take a little
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: basket and put some of the nesting material in about
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: maybe four inches deep, back it all down.
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: And how many eggs will be in there?
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: The average nest is like 20, about 20 to 30
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: eggs in a nest. But it's not unusual to find
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: one with 40 or 50 eggs in it.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: They say only one in 10 in the wild will survive.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: That's what I imagine on this egg deal is you
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: get like, there's a carrying capacity to the lake. Like
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: the lake's going to support or the body of water
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: is going to support a certain number of gators. And
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: if you remove some percentage of eggs, it's not going
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: to affect that end number of how many adult gators
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: can be in the lake.
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: Some people think, oh, we're taking all the eggs, so
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: we're not going to have any gators. But just take
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: Lake Okeechobee.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: For instance.
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: We get a lot of eggs off Okeechobee. And the
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: numbers are always way up. It's not really making a
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: dent in the population.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: I can understand that. When salmon go up and spawn,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: it's not like every one of those eggs turns into
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: a salmon. The system is going to support so many,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: and that's what the system's gonna support. And there's an
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: excess of eggs in some ways.
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: Plus, we're not finding every single nest. I mean, we
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: try to go around the edge of the lake and
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: stay within 100 yards of the edge. They can nest
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: miles back in there. We don't know.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: So you get the eggs in a basket, then what happens? Yeah,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: so they don't need to be incubated, or they do. Yeah,
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: they do.
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: They take them to an incubator, but we got to
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: be really careful. They tell us it's like a hurry
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: up and then slow down. We got to hurry, hurry, hurry,
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: but when we get to the nest, we got to
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: slow down.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: Our helper, we take really good magic markers. Before they
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: take the egg out of the nest, they got to
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: mark it, a line across it where the top part
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: is because there's an air bubble inside the egg, and
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: that's where the embryo.
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: Attaches to the shell. Okay.
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: So if you roll it over... it will drown that.
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: Oh, so you need to orient that egg in the
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: same position. Yeah, they have to be.
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: And every year, the first couple of days, the biologist
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: on the boat, he's always, you know, somebody's not marking
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: them right, you know? And I'm like, okay, okay, okay. Well,
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: we get them all in there lined up right. And
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: then we cover them back up with material. And we
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: try not to haul too many. Like in my boat,
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: I mean, if the pontoon boat's way out of position,
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: I put as many as eight, ten crates of eggs
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: in my boat. But we don't want too many because
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: we're riding in rough areas and bouncing. We don't want
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: to bounce them around and all that. Then we run
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: them out to a pontoon boat.
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: And then what happens to them?
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: Then that's where that retired biologist is. They got a
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: big box with a curtain over it, and he sticks
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: his head in there, and he has to candle every egg.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: And not every egg is good.
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: We might bring in a nest.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: There might not be any good eggs in it. Oh, really? Yeah.
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: He's got some corrugated little pipe, and he looks at them,
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: and if they're no good, they go right out that pipe.
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: And then the other ones, they re-box them again into
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: another cardboard box. Yeah, then they line them all up,
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: and that's when they come up with their numbers, and
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: that's when the biologists are there, and they know exactly
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: how many numbers that came out of that nest.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: And those eggs are going to supply Gator Farms.
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: That's correct yeah there's some really large gator farms and
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: they're buying them they bought yeah they're buying them from
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: the state yeah yep they're buying them that's where they
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: get their you know what they need they buy them
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: and they buy the hatchlings also and.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: You're working like um i don't even know the exact
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: money but like you're working on a day rate you're
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: working on a percentage of of the profit like what's
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: your how what's your take.
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah they pay us per egg okay and like i
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: said there's two crews north and south so in the
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: beginning they had a problem with competition guys are like
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: i found this many i got this many and then
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: i guess they were paying i wasn't in it then
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: they were i think there was controversy and people almost
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: fighting and everybody's trying to get more eggs to make
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: more money and then they said enough of that enough
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: of that So now they got a level playing field.
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: We all get the same money. The two crews combined,
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: we all get paid the same money.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: Got it. But ultimately, who sells the egg? The state
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: sells the egg or the people that have the contract
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: sell the egg?
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: The people that have the contract, they are the ones
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: with the license, but they're licensed by the state. And
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: there's a board of the... Gator farmers, every year they
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: have to vote. We're never guaranteed we're going to do
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: it every year.
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: I see.
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: They could say, no, we don't want those guys anymore.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: I got it. They could fire us.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: But as long as we're doing good and their hatch
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: rates 80% are better, then we don't have nothing to
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: worry about.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: Got it. And there's also, in some areas, there's also
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: a market for like a baby gator.
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the same people that buy them do that.
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And that's another collection thing that happens roughly around
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: the same time of season. Yeah.
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: Well, like eggs all hatch like in September. Like we
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: do the egg collection in July. Usually all the nests
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: are made. We start on the first of July or
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: last day of June. And we do it for like
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: two or three weeks solid. You know, we're going every day.
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: We're traveling all over the state. Yeah. Getting them.
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: And then there's a little bit of a break. September
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: 1st is when we're allowed to get the hatchlings.
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And.
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: Usually by September 11th or 12th, according to the guys
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: I work for, that's when all of them are hatched.
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: Got it.
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: And then we go looking and we can't wait too
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: long because everything eats them. Snakes eat them, blue herons,
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: bass will eat them because they're cute. They're just little,
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: small little babies.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: Do you feel that gator numbers... Are gator numbers still...
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: going up. I mean, I know that maybe there's concern
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: that there's fewer giant gators around or people see fewer
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: giant gators, but it just seems to me that there are.
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: This is just anecdotal from my perspective. It seems that
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: there's a staggering number of alligators and I cannot picture
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: how the systems can support the pounds of alligators. Meaning,
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: you look at a bend in the river, well, Let
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: me put it another way first. The first day we
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: were out, I told a couple of friends of mine.
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: I was like, they're literally, literally, during the time I
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: was there, there was no time when you weren't seeing.
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: There was no time when you weren't looking at gators.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: For hours and hours and hours on end, there was
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: always gators. Yeah. And it'd be that you'll look down
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: the river bank in some places, in some places, especially
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: the place we went the first time down, down the
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: river bank, you look and there's, there's nine just lined
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: up like cars parked in a driveway. We went through
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: a lock and there's sort of like this, this rock
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: wall area of a lock. We went through the lock
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: and just parked and there's six.
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: And it's a lock. Loud. Yeah.
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: They're not afraid of that. There's also water flowing through.
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: And gators always congregate where water's coming through a structure
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: or whatever.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: They're drawn to that movement.
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of garfish there. There's a lot of food.
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: There are dead fish coming through, turtles. And they'll eat
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: the garfish. The garfish are so thick, they catch them
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: and eat them.
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But the main point I was making, it's just
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: it seems like there's so many. I remember turkey hunting
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: down here a couple years ago. We'd just go for
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: a little drive now and then. And there's a ditch,
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: like a drainage ditch. And no big body of water around,
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: but it's a long drainage ditch. And that's lined with gators.
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's like, does it seem to you like
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: there's more and more and more? Or is it, are
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: our populations kind of like flat and stable by this point?
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: I think the numbers are, there's more gators now than
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: when I was young.
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: Because of the, you know, the way they protected them
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: and all. but there's tons of seven to nine foot
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: gators okay but because of the hunting and everybody evolving
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: with the hunting more people are baiting gators and stuff
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: it is getting harder to find gators over 10 foot
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: you think so yeah i mean look at how many
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: gators we looked at and.
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah but we had a lot of gators give us
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: the slip yeah i mean you see them way off
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: yeah I mean, you can't run a tape measure on
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: them all, but we saw a lot of gators that
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: were like, well, there's a nice gator, and he's gone
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: because he's 100 yards away.
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like you said, the bigger gators are smart.
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: And then we hunted two days and got two gators
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: that were over 10 feet. Yeah. But you feel like
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: even with that, you feel like there's a lower number. Oh, yeah.
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: Back in the early 2000s, the water was low at
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: the mouth of the Kissimmee River where we went out yesterday.
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: And we had like 14 foot surf rods with those
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: same treble hooks and we could wing them almost all
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: the way across the river. And it was, it was
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: nothing to catch a 12 foot alligator.
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: You could catch them all the time. I mean, I
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: killed them up to 13. There's a couple of buddies
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: of mine got 12 footers mounted in their houses in Wyoming.
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Where it was, it was easy. But now looking back,
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: I'm like, wow, I miss those days. Yeah. We, we
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: should establish that, that, uh, Explain what a top end
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: gator is.
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: You mean like a trophy gator?
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: Well, what is the biggest that makes sense? Like you
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: hear people say numbers, but it's probably not true. Like
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: you even said, people say, oh, it's 15 feet. Like
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: it probably wasn't 15 feet.
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, I'm around bass boaters. I've fished bass
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: tournaments forever. And I can't tell you how many people
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: have said, I saw this gator as long as my
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: 21 foot bass boat. And I'm like, okay, yeah. But
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: the state record's only 14 foot. I think it's like
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: six and a half or something right now.
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: So it's not, I mean, I wouldn't.
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: But a 13-foot gator is.
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: Is a massive, old gator.
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: A massive gator, yes. A 12-foot gator is achievable. Yes.
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: An 11-foot gator, if you work hard, you'll find one. Yeah.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: And like you're saying, the eight or nine-foot gator, they're
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: just everywhere.
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, if you wanted just a meet and hide gator,
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: an eight to nine-foot gator, seven to nine-foot gator, or
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: even six. The smaller they are, the better they eat.
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: And the smaller they are, their hides aren't all beat up.
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: Because the old gators, they get cancer. They've been fighting.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: They're missing limbs. They got all kind of blemishes in
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: their hide. The best hides are probably a six to
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: eight foot gator.
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the thing I want to touch on real quick.
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: We went to a gator. We dropped our gators at
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: a gator processor. So what's the name of that outfit
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: we went to? Florida Trophy Gators.
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: This guy, he's primarily, he was explaining, Wade was explaining, primarily,
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: we're a gator taxidermy business. But we skin gators, we
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: process meat, we do all the other stuff, but kind
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: of our focus is gator taxidermy. Yeah. But you don't
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: need to do that. You can drop off a gator. One,
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: they got big walk-in coolers, so you get your gator
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: taken care of and cool, processed in a hurry, butchered.
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: They portion the meat out. They run the meat through
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: a tenderizer. They defat it, and you get back one-pound
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: packages of ready-to-eat gator meat. Yep. We dropped off that one.
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: It was 11.7, am I remembering right? Yep. 11.7, and
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: I can't remember what he said. We were expecting maybe
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: we're going to wind up with 70, 80 pounds of
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: gator meat off that gator. But he's got all over there,
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: there's signs right now, In Magic Marker. Yeah. Not buying gators. Yeah. Okay.
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: Tell people what's up with why there's signs saying not
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: buying gators.
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: I know some of it, not all of it, but
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: I know that this is the first year I've ever
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: seen that.
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: This is the first year? Yeah.
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: I've never seen this in my life before. I mean,
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: the gator market is getting flooded. Because all the gator
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: farms and there's more processors, there's more people doing it.
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: I know Wade was telling us that his freezers were
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: full of meat. They supply restaurants and stuff around here too.
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: I don't know for what reason or whatever, but the
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: meat market's flooded. He was sitting on meat from last year.
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: He's like, that's it. We can't buy any more gators.
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: And the Hyde's because of the gator farms and and
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: the hide market the hides are not even worth anything.
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: Anymore yeah i had another guy i just met randomly
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: a guy from florida that hunts gators used to hunt
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: gators and he was explaining to me he says man
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: the whole wild gator hide thing the market's dead yeah
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: he said it's dead because of farm gators because farm
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: gators can produce a a consistent perfect product yeah and
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: wild gators can't compete with farm gators so he says
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: we used to kill wild gators and make good money
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: on hides good money on meat but now you got
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: these people making cookie cutter perfect gators and no one.
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: Wants the gator leather from a wild gator some of
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: the gator farms are huge and one of them i
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: know of they kill 500 to a thousand gators every
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: day monday through friday they're processing that many alligators you
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: know And they still have a good market because they're
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: dealing with the.
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: Hide buyers are like the tanneries in Italy and stuff.
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. So when he has that, so here's a
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: guy that he does some restaurant supply stuff. And, you know,
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: you drop it off, you get a form. You're like,
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: I want my skull all cleaned up. I want my meat.
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: They'll ship the meat to you. I want to get
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: the Gator stuffed. I want it made for leather, for boots.
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: Like you get all this kind of stuff taken care of,
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: but he's not buying when they, like, if you go
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: back a few years and tell me some of the
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: ways that like, what would be some of the prices
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: that you could bring in? Like you go on a
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: Gator hunt and you just, you don't want nothing to
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: do with the Gator. You get a 10 foot Gator.
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: You'd go in and it'd be, he'd buy it for
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: what per foot or what per foot, not just him,
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: but the market in general. Yeah.
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: Original before the Gator farms got really big. they wanted
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: the bigger Gators.
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: You know, like the 10, 11, 12 footers, they were
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: paying more. And, you know, I had problems with my
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: business years ago and got down on money and we weren't,
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: we weren't guiding as much. We were, I was selling
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: the hides to Wade's dad.
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: And that was what was putting bread on the table
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: for me. I mean, we were getting like 20, $ 30
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: a foot or more for the big, the more, the
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: bigger the Gator, the more we got, got it you
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: know and he was just.
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: So you could go out some night get a 10
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: footer and just.
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: Walk in five or six hundred dollars cash money in
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: my hand right there right now you like the other
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: couple years ago i had one tag left wade and
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: i went and killed a nine foot gator i think
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: i got I think $ 180 or something.
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: Got it. And you don't got to, after you get it,
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: you don't do nothing.
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: No, you just bring it there. They buy the whole thing.
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: They lift it off, throw a tape measure on it,
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: and pay you by foot. Yeah. So do you feel
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: that since he's now not buying gators and the market's different,
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: do you feel that that is going to reduce interest
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: in gator hunting? Or do you think there's such a
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: recreational gator hunting thing culture that it doesn't matter that
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: they're valueless.
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: No i don't think it's ever the hunting's ever going
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: to go down i think it's a novelty kind of
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: a hunt uh-huh a buddy of mine sam heaton he
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: he helps me sometimes he tells everybody he's hunted all
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: over the world like you and he's like this is
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: the most unique hunt in the north american continent there's
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: nothing else like.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: It yeah it's it's like it's hunting and fishing combined.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah people are like amazed by it and in the
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: danger element you know Yeah. I've been doing it for
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: a long time.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: Do you think it's dangerous? It can be. I didn't
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: get like a danger vibe off it, but you've been
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: doing it a long time.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: You scared me when you were climbing in that tree,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: when that one was hung up and you almost fell.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: I was like, he'll grab you. Yeah.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: I'm like, he's kind of upset. You know, he's got
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: hooks in him and you were in a bad spot. Yeah.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: But you've never had a, I mean, like I was saying,
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: it didn't seem dangerous. Cause you know what? Cause you've
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: seen it a bunch.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: So you're like, well, don't do that. Don't do that.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: Don't do that. But I could see if I just
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: went out and I had never done it before, I
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: could see snagging one of them suckers and getting in
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: real trouble.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: But you're like, okay, step one is this. Step two
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: is that. Step three is this. And there's a lot of, like,
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: checks along the way. Yeah. Until toward the end, you're, like,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: taping his, you know, you got his mouth taped shut.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: You sever his spinal cord. Yeah. When he comes on
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: the boat, he's cashed, but it's a process. I didn't
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: get a danger vibe off it because you just had
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: a way that you know how you do it.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: It's more dangerous when we do the eggs than it
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: is the hunting.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: I'm sure.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: The females, they have that natural maternity thing where they're
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: going to protect their young.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: Do guys come to you? Do you have clients that
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: come to you and... They're like, hey, I'm going to
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: try to get these tags. I'm going to apply for
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: the lottery draw for Okeechobee. And when I do it,
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: I'll come find you.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of people call me up because they
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: want to know because there's so many areas we can
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: put in for gator tags.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: They want to know where to put it.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I tell them the areas that I like
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: to hunt and they'll call me and put in for
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: those areas.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: And you've kind of, like I said, I can't tell
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: how much you're joking or not. How many... How many
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: years more gator hunting are you going to do? Oh, shoot.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: I don't know, man. Like, take a stab, man. Like,
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: in 20 years? You've seen me, man. Are you going
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: to be gator hunting in 20 years?
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: No, I'm not going to be gator hunting in 20 years.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: I'll be lucky to be alive in 20 years.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, you're going to be gator hunting in 10 years? Well,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: you've seen my helper, Garrett. That's the thing. Now you've
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: got a young guy rolled in.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: Well, James used to hunt my son. He used to
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: be my helper. Me and him could conquer the world
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: when we're together in the Mars. But like Garrett, he
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: has more time to do it. And he did awesome.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: This is the first time. I used him this year
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: the first time.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: He's great. He's great.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: And I can't lift the gators.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: I can't.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: My back doctor's telling me if I keep doing it,
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: I'm going to end up in a wheelchair.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm just, as long as I have a
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: good helper, I'm going to keep going.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Because eventually you can just sit back and be
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: the brains.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's kind of what I started doing with Garrett.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, he's doing good. You just point this way,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: point that way.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: That spot and stalk we did yesterday. I used to
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: love doing that stuff, you know, and I can't.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: What he's talking about is what Captain Bob's talking about.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: We had a gator down the beach from us. And
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: this gator was no way, no hogging to take that bait. No,
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: he wasn't going to. Got out of the boat, snuck down.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: real tall grass and brush, snuck down and basically crept
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: in on him. Yeah. And we were like easing ahead,
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: easing ahead. Pretty soon you can see his head out
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: there in the marsh and then planted a hook. Yeah.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: Hooked him, then ran out, waved the boat down. The
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: boat came down, jumped on the boat, chased the gator
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: down river because he was pulling drag, man.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: Not very many people do this spot and stalk on alligators.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: But I like it.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: That's a cool thing.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you used to do that, didn't you? Got some
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: slower to it, too. I just can't.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: I have nerve damage in my back, and I can't
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: walk good.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: So of all the stuff you guide for, I asked
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: you about this this morning. You didn't give me a
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: satisfactory answer. Of all the stuff you guide for... Oh,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: there it comes, raining. Better check windows in cars. I
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: mentioned when I came in, we're recording this. I was...
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: telling the guys I was telling Seth and Max about
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: this 1928 Okeechobee flood and I'm pulling it up and
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: reading about it and I'm reading about it and it
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: happened to be today's date today's date is the it's
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: the 98th anniversary of the Okeechobee flood which they debate
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: the numbers but drowned About 2,500 people. Yeah. South of
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: Lake Okeechobee.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, from Clewiston all the way up to Pahokee.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: And I didn't know this either. There's a mass grave
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: near here that has about 1,600 people in it.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: It was really close to where we went fishing today.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: I actually knew a guy that was alive. Not in
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: that flood. Maybe it was. No, it was when they
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: were building the lock in Clewiston before they had the
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: dike complete. He was a young boy. That guy's passed
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: away now. But the Army Corps engineers had this big,
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: it was kind of like a, it was like a
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: houseboat kind of a thing. And there was a hurricane coming.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: There was no really good paved roads. The roads going
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: into the Everglades that are paved now, they weren't there yet.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: And they were, they had a little settlement there. They
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 2: were living in like a little makeshift house thing down
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: there in The Army Corps people went down there and
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: got the family because that boy, that guy that was
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: telling me the story was a young boy then. They
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: got him over there and got him in that boat
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: with them. And they tied the boat up. The lock
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: wasn't even complete, but it has two big concrete walls.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: The doors weren't on or nothing. And they tied the
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: boat up really good in the middle of it because
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: of the hurricane. And all he remembered was for half
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: the hurricane, the boat was tilted one way. And then
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: the eye of the storm came and it went upright.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: And then it went back the other way. That was, yeah, no,
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: that was after the flood. That was after the flood.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: We'll get off the subject, but I'm just bringing it
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: up because it's raining on the anniversary of that flood.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: But I was reading, too, that a lot of people
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: were killed by water moccasins because people were up on
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: rooftops and stuff.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, hanging on to trees and everything.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: All these snakes are also up, and they're trying to
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: crawl out of the water, and they're crawling out of
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: the water where there are people, and people are getting
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: killed by moccasins. Yeah. Terrible.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: There's an island down between Belle Glade and Clewiston. It's
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 2: called Ridda Island. There was a settlement there. There was
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: no heavy equipment then. Everybody, they were just old.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: School.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: They had mules and stuff. They were disking up muck,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: making an earthen barrier to have a farm. They built houses.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: There was a post office there. That's one of the
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: areas where you're saying they were Houses got trashed and
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: the people had to keep going up in the house
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: and holding on in the attics, holding on to trees.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: It was really a bad situation. You see this hat
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: says Bear Grease? Yeah. That's a podcast we do in
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: our network. It's hosted by a guy named Clay Newcomb,
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: who's a Southerner. I texted him today. It's a podcast
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: about Southern culture, Southern history. I texted him today and
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: told him he needs to do a Bear Grylls series
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: or an episode on the Okeechobee flood. And I think
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: that he will. That'll be cool. When it comes out,
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: you'll have to listen to it. Let's get back to
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: my last question. You've guided ducks, snipe, crappies, bluegills, or shellcrackers. Yeah. Gators.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: I asked you, what, what do you like more? Like what,
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: what one do you wake up and you're most, you're
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: most excited about the day?
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: For guiding or me personally?
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: Just for how good of a time you're going to
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: have that day.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: I like guiding hunters more than fishermen.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: But I am a fisherman. I like fishing. People ask me,
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: do you ever get burnt out with fishing?
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: I'm like, no.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 2: I get burnt out taking people fishing, but I don't
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: get burnt out personally fishing.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: But, I mean, if I had to give everything up,
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: I would fish.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: Is that satisfying?
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But you like gator hunting?
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 2: I love gator hunting. I've been messing with gators ever
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: since I was a little kid. My dad used to
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: whip me with his fishing rod. Yeah.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: I do got one last question for you. What would be,
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: as a guide, if you could convey one message to
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: the clients out there in the world? It's like you're
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: the guide and you're able to speak Like, this is
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: the guide. I wish all you people understood this. Hmm.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 2: That's a hard one. I'm kind of a guide that
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: I try to accommodate everybody.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: No matter where they're at. Okay.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: I go out of my way to do that, and
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: I think that's one of the reasons why I've been
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: a successful guide.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: You don't have a single, you don't have one pet
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: peeve that you could pass along to America's clients.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: No, no, I don't think so.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: Really? Yeah. That's a polite guy, man.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: I am very, people always tell me, why are you
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: so nice?
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: I don't know. No, you're a nice guy.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 2: I just like to see people get what they're after,
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: and I work my tail off to do it.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: So like today, we did a little fishing today, and
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: Seth over here behind the, you can't see him over here.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: He was having a heck of a time getting that
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: hook hung up on them rocks. What'd you think about that?
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: I knew it was going to happen. It was all right.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: You were fine with that? All them rocks he was hooking?
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: I guess the thing that ticks me off, you want
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 2: to really know what ticks me off, okay?
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: Please, yeah, I do want to know what ticks me off.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: Seth outfished me. I don't know if you noticed that. Yeah,
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: he did good.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: He jumped off a couple of tarpon and had some hits.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: Okay, anyhow, here's the pet peeve. I want to end
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: on a negative. We get people in the bait shop.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm half awake. I got my coffee. I'm
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: trying to think about where I'm going, what I'm doing.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: And they get in the boat and they start telling
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: me stories. They're fishing stories.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: Oh, they're fishing stories.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: And like that, I don't like. None of the guys
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: like it.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, my buddy. You know why they're doing that?
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: They're doing that because they want you to take them seriously.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: But then when you see them handle the equipment, you're like...
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: It's a miracle. It'd have to be a kamikaze fish.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because they're sitting there. They're like, here it is.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: He's like the guide. He probably thinks I'm some rube.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: I need to tell him that I'm a man's man too.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: I'm going to show him my fishing pictures.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: It could be. But they don't realize we're stressing in
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 2: the morning. People don't realize this. They think, oh, you're
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 2: a fishing guide. What a dream job. You just take
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 2: people fishing. I'm like, yeah, but it's not a dream job.
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 2: we're stressing right now. The lake is not fishing the
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 2: best that it ever did. And when, when they come
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: in there, they're introducing themselves and telling us their stories.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 2: And I'm thinking my mind's going 90 miles. Should I
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: go here? Should I go there? Where should I go?
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: You know, I need to get this done and I'm
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 2: trying to listen to them and remember their name. And
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: I'm like, ah, you know, but it's stressful.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: Let's role play for a minute. You don't say nothing.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: I'm the guide. You're the client. We get in the boat.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: I go, listen, Okay, you're the client. I'm the guide.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: I'm like, listen, I know. I know you are a
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: fantastic fisherman. I already know. You don't need to tell me.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: Maybe you'll just kill that whole thing right then and there.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: If you just come clean, I know you're the best
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: fisherman that's ever walked. You're the greatest fisherman that's ever walked.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: I'm blessed to be in a boat with you. I
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: don't even need to see the proof because I just know.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: What really killed it? Cracks those up. We always laugh
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 2: about it. The other guys do. The guys that get
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: in the boat, and they're all jazzed up. They're coming
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 2: to Lake Okeechobee. 10-pounders are jumping in the boat. I'm
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 2: feeling that 10-pounder today. And right away, I'm like, probably
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 2: ain't going to happen. But the guys that come and
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 2: are all amped up, and they're bouncing off the wall,
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 2: about catching a 10-pounder, They don't do too great. The
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 2: guy that comes and just wants to relax and is
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 2: enjoying being out there and all laid back.
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: They're the ones that have the best days. It never fails.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: Got it. Ultimately, to seriously end it on a positive note,
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: to clients out there, relax. Take in the experience. You
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: don't need to prove nothing to me. I'm going to
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: try to help you have a great day fishing.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 2: You know, that's what our job is.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: Let's just keep it simple. Yeah. This isn't a showdown.
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: We're not having a showdown here.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: I do enjoy it, though. No, you must. You've been
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: doing it a long time. You're good at it, man.
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: It's fun to hang out with you in the boat.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: Tell people real quick how to find you. My business
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: name is Okeechobee Charters.
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 2: You can find it on the web, okeechobeecharters.com. And I'm
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 2: also hooked up with Garrett's Tackle in Okeechobee.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: You can call them. Yeah. Well, it's Gerrard's.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 2: Well, their real name is Gerrard's. Everybody calls it Gerrard's.
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: Oh, Gerrard's. It is? Oh, I'm sorry. I read that wrong.
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: And that's where you go to get your morning coffee. Yeah.
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 2: In our bait and all.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: In our ice.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: We get all our supplies for the day.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: So for the gator end of things, when is the
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: gator draw in Florida?
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 2: The gator draw is usually in May. Around May 1st,
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: we got to get ready to draw. I don't know.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 2: Sometimes they change it a little bit, but.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: So someone might want to shoot you an email prior
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: to that date. Yeah.
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 2: April to May, you need to contact me.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: You're walking through what they need to do. Yeah.
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 2: And I can show, I'll tell them, I help people
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 2: fill out the forms because there's a lot of stuff
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 2: to fill out.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: And then if anyone needs some Gator meat, hit me
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: and Seth up. Yeah.
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 2: You guys got a bunch of meat.
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: We're sitting pretty rich on Gator meat right now. All right, man.
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: Thanks for coming on the show, buddy. Appreciate it. It's
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: been a real pleasure and a real pleasure to watch
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: you do your thing and Man, I learned a ton.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: We were talking about that before we came over, how
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: much we learned over that couple days.
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 2: I'm glad you enjoyed it.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 2: I want to get you on that airboat one day.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: I've been on your airboat. Not this one. I've been
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: on a airboat with you. Not that airboat with you. Thanks, everybody.
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: Thank you.