Waist High Gators - Florida
We went to spend the Fourth of July down at Osceola Outfitters and of course to do a little hunting! We had a full camp this trip and it was a lot of fun, even the rain didn't ruin it!
We had been rained on almost everyday, and a lot of it, to where they had to open up a couple of the water reservoirs to release some of the water to go in to the swamps! We were heading out to go gator hunting and weren't really sure to as how it was all going to go. We had Ralph, me, Hoppy, Lonnie, Meegan, and Dusty all walking thru the swamps. We got set up by a lake, that didn't normally flow over the banks as it was this day! Hoppy had sent Lonnie with the gator call to go back a hair from where we were set up, to try to make the gators come swimming by us for a shot. Well with just the noise of us walking into the the area, we already had gators swimming towards us!
I was set up in thigh high water with my bog-pod sticks. I had Meegan's Thompson Center 204 Pro Hunter ready to go! We watched a couple of small gators going by, and Hoppy said to wait to see if we can get a larger one in. We saw a few bigger gators out further, but they weren't coming in to the call. There was one gator that was coming in closer and closer, finally at about 10 yards from me in the water, Hoppy said I better shoot that one!!! Talk about a rush! A gator 10 yards in the water with me! I shot and he went down immediately!
We were all excited about the hunt and then we spotted a BIG gator coming in by us! Hoppy said to reload the TC and get ready!! There was a creek that flows thru the lake and we had to wait for the gator to get out of the flowing water, so that if he goes down immediately, we will be able to recover him! We waited and he kept floating in and then he would float back out with the water! When he finally got out of the flowing water, I took my shot! He flipped up and made a huge splash! We had to go get the boat to recover both of the gators, as the water was extremely deep!
Hoppy and I went out in the little boat to recover the big gator, it was amazing that he and I were able to get it into the boat! We then paddled back over to where the first gator went down, by then Lawrence was able to get out to where we were and he jumped into the water to help with the other gator.
What a blast we had!! The gators ended up going 6'8" and 10'4"!! We all had so much fun hunting gators in waist high water that week. It was a memory I don't think any of us will ever forget!!
Thanks again to Hoppy and Osceola Outfitters for a top notch gator hunt!!
Hunter: Vicki Cianciarulo
Cameraman: Ralph Cianciarulo
