Florida: Alligator
After an amazing and very successful trophy sturgeon trip in Idaho, I was left with four states in which to catch at least one trophy: Alaska; Hawaii; Maine; and Montana. My family wanted to go to Maine in the summer, so I decided to make my annual out-of-state trip in 2024 a very different type of fishing trip. I had long wanted to hunt a massive alligator with rod and reel and, after my usual tons of research, I found the perfect guide for it: Rick of Fla Gator Hunts (flagatorhunts.com).
The last two years I had left the usual 30-degree February weather of Virginia for the snow and ice in northern Nevada and then the sub-zero wind chills of northern Washington, so going to Florida during a 60-degree "cold spell" felt pretty fantastic. Alligators, a literal cold-blooded killer, didnt love the front though and were not on top water, but Rick knew where to find them.
My first gator, which Rick called my "practice" gator, was a 6-footer, every bit of an awesome fight in its own right. Fighting an alligator on rod and reel was even more exhilarating than I had hoped. The fight was hard and unpredictable, and I truly had no idea what was going to happen at any given point. I got the practice gator in and Rick was able to tape its mouth for pictures before letting it go. That's right: you can do catch and release fishing for alligator if you do it right! I thought that was pretty cool.
We then cruised the ponds and shoreline looking for a big one. Rick spotted a 10-footer cruising on one end of a pond, but he went under before we got there. I tried a few blind casts looking for him, before Rick signalled me that he was on the other end of the pond. I stalked him carefully and made a cast over him. He dove under the water but I made a quick jerk with the snatch hook and I had him on! This fight was noticeably harder than my practice gator. People ask how it compared to a big fish, and it's difficult to say. I was using 150-pound test, which is heavier than I used to catch my 900-pound bluefin tuna or any of my several hundred pound sturgeon. But despite that, I still had to fight like crazy, especially because hooked gators will head for underground roots to escape and, quite frankly, turning a massive apex predator when he's trying to do something else is difficult, to say the least.
The gator was only about 25 yards away when I hooked him, and the pond wasn't huge, yet it took me about half an hour to get him to the shore. At that point I had fought him almost to death, but still had to pull him up the bank. The scene would have been familiar to any parent: I am pulling with everything I've got, but the petulant child on the other end (in this case, the massive gator) has dug his feet into the sand and is not budging. This went on for quite a while before I finally got him up the bank. This magnificent gator measured 10 feet 2 inches and was estimated to be 270 pounds! A true trophy gator. The entire hunt was an unbelievable experience and I hope to be able to do it again one day!
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