08/20/2026
My passion for guiding is partly do to my attraction to sports with a high chance of failure if you don't pay attention to the details. Baseball as a kid, marlin fishing and alligator hunting as an adult. The last 36 hours put that theory to the test. Add in a paying client who drove 14 hours from New Jersy with very specific wants for their once in a lifetime hunt and the risk of failure can be soul crushing. Screw it up and you dont get paid, stick the landing and it makes the memory of a lifetime. Dave made that drive with the solid conviction that he wasn't going to settle for an alligator less than 10ft. A well research client with high standards doesn't make the hunt easier, but it keeps the team focused on the objective. The result was amazing. Dave and I are the same age, with very similar personalities so spending all day Wednesday from 0700 until 2130 hunting alligators with him was easy despite earth scorching heat. We caught and released over a half dozen gators, a couple of which could have been easy to accept in a compromise. I already had another client booked for this morning so Dave had to wait patiently till noon before we could hunt. While catching a 7 foot gator with the morning client, I spotted this beast of an 11footer. Dave and I slipped along the edge of the pond and a little before 1 PM we had him hooked in a battle that was nothing short of a wild rollercoaster ride. The second hook came undone a half dozen times, and at one point he slipped both hooks, only to betray his location with the slightest bubble pile. Dave was awesome, and had mastered all the gear and techniques from the day before. The coup de gras came in one final pitched battle nearly 20 minutes into the fight when the gator started to really raise hell. The gator slipped Dave's first shot, and the second shot inevertenely cut one of the two lines connecting us to this enraged beast. Dave's third shot was spot on and finished the job. We were both drenched in sweat and about to pass out from the combination of hell hot summer heat, and a mind blowing amount of adrenaline still flooding our overheated bodies. Www.bullgatorbayou.com
