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

This is an iHeart podcast, Guaranteed Human. The best part of a Whitetail sit is often the part you have to earn. The temperature drops, nothing's moving, and climbing down starts sounding pretty good. The difference between seeing it through and climbing down early is about heart, but it's also about heat. That's why first light built whispered down. With 900 fill power, muscovy down, box bathful construction, and quiet water resistant fabric, it delivers serious warmth without weighing you down. First light whispered down, pack light, stay longer. Check it out now at firstlight.com That's F-I-R-S-T-L-I-T-E. Welcome everybody. Today I'm joined by Florida man, Captain Bob Stafford, like the actual Florida man. When you see a headline says Florida man, this guy, Captain Bob Stafford. In all seriousness, Bob Stafford is a guy. He guides in Lake Okeechobee, Florida. He guides for ducks, large mouthbass, crappies, snipe, snipe, but we're here to talk about one of the things he does, which he's a gator hunter. Guides gator hunts in Okeechobee, Lake Okeechobee. I met Bob. I've been thinking about talking to this man for many years because I met you maybe six, five years ago. How many years ago? We were out and I was doing a different unrelated work project, kind of like ancillary to the stuff I do, kind of ancillary to what I do at meat eater. But we were working on a project and we were out in Lake Okeechobee and we were shooting to laugh you of bows and arrows one night. And we were in Bob's, your buddy's airboat, you clarified it was not this airboat. Now this one was being worked on, was your buddy's airboat and we were talking a bunch about gators. And what stuck in my head is he was telling me about baiting gators with chickens and it's burrowed in my head and we became kind of like, you know, text message friends. And I had planned on anticipated that I was like someday I'm going to come down and go gator hunting with you, which I've never done. Yeah. And it's funny because more than any other, you know, you get a question like, have you ever done blank? Have you ever done blank for questions from, for me, it would be the number one thing people say to me is have you ever gone gator hunting more than any other like kind of animal? I'm not kidding you. Have you ever gone gator hunting? Am I answer eyes? No. And I kind of wanted to remedy that. But I had it in my head that when I remedied that I was going to remedy it with you because I got a kick out of talking to you and the chicken thing stuck in my head. Yeah. So finally, here we are, and we got some gators yesterday. We got like a, well, one of the gators we got was 11 feet, seven inches, you know, a friend of mine, another Florida man, I texted to him and he said, that's a gator of a lifetime. Or a lifetime gator or something to that effect. Yeah. That's like catching my 10 pound bath. Yeah. So we got a big old gator. Um, but I want to go back to the, I want to go back to in terms of your experiences with gators and the market of gators and gator hunting and you're involved in all kinds of gator businesses, gator eggs, like wild gator egg collection, baby gator collection, like this is sanctioned stuff, not like law breaking stuff, but like, it's all completely life. Yeah. Licensed activities. But in getting into this, I want to step back first and can you explain what, like, when you were being brought up, what you were, you were born, I was born on 59, okay, 1959. When you were brought up and you were a little kid and back then, like gators were protected by the endangered species act. Yeah. When you were a little kid, what was your awareness of gators? How were people in your community? How did they view alligators? Like, like what are your kind of early memories about alligators and how alligators and man interacted? Well, a lot of it was my, my father was a, he was a fishing guide also, but he was a sport fish captain, but he didn't like the ocean as much when he had free time. We spent a lot of time in the Everglades and on Lake Okeechobee and we lived south down by Fort Lauderdale and Pompadot. And he also, the game commission had, has a big part of it because there was this place that's not even there anymore down, it was a place called Laxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge and there was a building and a store there and they literally had programs where these game wardens would come for kids and all and show videos of the Everglades and alligators and stuff like that and I just took a shine to it, you know, and I just loved being in the Everglades. My dad brought me up out there, running the little kicker boats, Duckhunting and, you know, and that's, that's kind of where it started, kind of just, I loved the Everglades, I loved Lake Okeechobee, it's all, it all used to be all connected, you know, until they diked everything in and separated everything. So Okeechobee was really the top of the Everglades. What, when they were an ESA animal, so even back then, let's say, so let's say around 1960, you'd have been kind of old enough to know what was going, sorry 1970, you'd been old enough to go and what was going on. Was it rare to see one? No, they were around, but there were, there weren't as many of them, because we used to waitfish in Lake Okeechobee, and there wasn't that many gators when I was growing up in my, you know, adolescent years, even teenage years, yeah, there wasn't that many. I was not afraid to jump in the water. We didn't have trolling motors and stuff then, you know, a tire rope on my waist and drag my boat around with my dad fishing for miles. I wouldn't do that now, because the program they had, it really worked. Yeah. They started opening up until 1988, when it became legal, they started allowing alligator hunting. Did you jump right into it in the 80s when it was 88 when they opened it up? I tried to apply for permits the first year, and it was different back then. I didn't get them. I didn't know much about it at that point, I really, I always met with gators. My dad was always mad at me, because I would catch them, bring them home. My dad was always mad, but I've always been fascinated with alligators. Yeah. And at that time, they had been protected for so long. There wasn't like a, it was, so it was 1988 when they opened it up. They had been protected so long, there wasn't sort of like a class or an existing community of gator hunters. No, there was no gator hunting. Yeah. So what did that look like when, as people, what did that look like as people all summer, like, man, we're allowed to go get some of these. True, look like for people that were going out and trying to learn how to do it. Well, they did it. They made a class when they started to teach, teach people how to do it. But what happened is a lot of the people, because when they first came out, they were giving 15 alligator tags to one person. Okay. Nobody was guiding for hunts, and the hide buyers were really wanting the hides, because there wasn't hardly any gator farms and stuff. Okay. So people started seeing dollar signs on them. That's one thing that turns me off with alligator hunting, because everybody that gets tags or now, even now, they see dollar signs. They think they're going to get rich off of the alligators because at a time, it was good money. Yeah. Well, yeah, because they were getting $60 to $80 a foot for a hide. And if you applied for a permit those days, like now in this area, I don't know by everywhere, but I know that the permit we applied for in this area, but if you draw the permit, you get two alligator tags. Yeah. And even if you drew, it's 15 gator tags. Yeah. And gators were worth how much a foot, like $60 to $80 for the hide. And plus, you got meat too, but you weren't allowed to sell the meat unless it went through a licensed processor. But if you had, in those days, if you got 15 gator tags, was it full of huge gators? I mean, could guys honestly go out and make like a sizable chunk of money, killing 15 gators and selling the leather? Yeah. And they were not trophy hunting, like what we were doing on our deal. They were going out and getting $6 to $8 a footers. I see. I mean, I didn't get involved in it at that point. You know, I still wanted to. I didn't get picked the first few years. I see. Yeah. and gas stations and I airboat and gator just piled up and they mean they're 15 yeah yeah they're going away they might not get off 15 but they had a six eight ten gators and and you had to sit on your hides and wait for this high validation validation program where they have a meeting and the people would inspect the hides and you know and bid on them and pay you the money for them then so what was the first year that you were able to go on a gator hunt probably around early 90s maybe 90 92s when I finally started and they cut they started cutting the tag numbers back oh really yeah so they started giving more tags out more more licenses out to more people but cut the numbers that you could get back got it and in those days when you started there in those days was it still like a commercial endeavor for people to go gator hunting for me it wasn't I I started out just I really wasn't a guide then you know I just started because I love gators I started hunting gators and then people knew that I hunted gators and and it's weird it's like an evolution the way we hunted them and the beginning we would take air boats with harpoons with on a buoy with a buoy on a rope and then you would just shine the light and the gators were not used to it you could run right over to the gator and throw the harpoon and the buoy would go out and you'd turn around go pull them in bang stick them and go get another one that was the early days yeah that was the early days and then after a few years of that alligators evolved too they started getting smart you start an airboat up and every gator within a half a mile will go down you know that was the thing that that was the thing that surprised me over to let spend in a couple days with the out was um I should say surprised because I didn't I didn't think about it before but an observation I had and you validated it was that they are very aware that they're being hunted yes and they are skittish yeah and they see a boat come around the bend in the river and the big ones are like I'm out yeah and the little ones that haven't been around long don't know if you're going around a river bend and the big gator here's you know he's going down before you even come around the bend you know and it's funny to think about at a time that they wouldn't have that response yeah no yeah they wouldn't you could just ride right up to them yeah every once in a while you can do it now but I'm not that good at harpooning I don't like it as much you know that's why I hunt the way I do what what did you do with the first gators you you got when you start when you start to get in some tags and stuff what were you doing with them I wasn't even selling the hides we were just like cleaning them ourselves we would do our own processing okay we would skin them ourselves you know and then cut the meat up we would keep the meat for ourselves and salt the hides and get the hides tanned okay for my tannery got it I didn't really get involved in selling the gators like they did in the beginning got it and you were telling me like walk through how you used to like another another thing that I shouldn't say surprised but I hadn't thought about it before is I'm very aware of if you kill the deer right you got a real problem on your hands when it's hot out yeah like you got to get the deer cooled off yeah and I don't know man I hadn't rethought about that Nelson you got this 300 400 pound reptile it's 90 degrees out it's like an issue oh it's a major issue if you want to do something with the hides in it it's hot out they'll the the scales will start flaking off like you saw that one in the office the other day where they didn't take care of it right you know and the meat can go bad so you had to get it cooled off right away then you used to use to tell people that you used to use a canoe yeah I had an old canoe and a ice machine and then we were only killing two a night when they got down to the two per license and I would bring them home you know we'd be tired because we're hunting all night and in the beginning you could you had to hunt at night like it was like a half hour before sunset to a half hour after sunrise well that was the rule yeah that was a rule it might have been an hour I don't remember but either way I would come over here put them in the cooler and bury them in ice and go try to get a couple hours to sleep and then you wake up and during gator season it's in the nineties usually every day so I'd like take one in a time and try to clean them as fast as I could and and then get salt on the hides right away and still some of the scales would slip we call it slipping yeah what and were you guys uh were you selling some of that gator meet no I never did give it away to friends and stuff you know when I first started doing it I didn't have a bunch of money and I couldn't afford to bring them to a processor so we did it all ourselves yeah I just made it what was the I didn't I had no idea till you just set it right now because I know a lot of your old gator hunting stories or night stories yeah I had no idea that it was that you were supposed to hunt at night yeah I don't even know what the reasoning was in the beginning I swear it was like the movie the jaws that jaws movie yeah we would go to the boat ramp and we would have to drive through protesters spitting on our trucks cut the game wounds were there trying to make sure you know they have signs screaming at us were you know if you think your macho go kill a gator with a knife you know without a boat you know they were screaming all kind of stuff at us you know it was just I don't know why the night thing was I think they did it because they didn't want people seeing us doing it I don't know yeah yeah I don't know what the reasoning was talk about that evolution like you said in the early days guys were throwing harpoons from air boats yeah and they still guys to do it that are really good at it I've never been that great at it so you know I didn't learn how to I'm a fisherman and I can cast good and I started learning how to snag him a treble hooks and it gets hard to do that too like they keep going down you know you have to just keep fan cast and sometimes you get lucky sometimes you wouldn't but how do you know if you're watching a gator a hundred yards down the river and the gator goes under how do you even begin to have an idea where to cast well you got to kind of watch the way they go down if they go down and their noses up there and they just go down easy backwards like that they're usually going right down and laying on the bottom okay they know they're safe there and that's when we would fan cast but like if they blow really hard then they take it off fast and you know your chances of snagging them are slim got it yeah tell people to set up use the snag gator yeah I just use like I use a I use bait cast and kind of reels bigger ocean reels but we use like a 150 to 200 pound test line with a weighted treble hook on it and try to throw it over we try to get over their neck if we can and you want to hook them 50% from the body to the forward okay if you hook them in the back it makes it a harder fight you're dragging them just like tail hook and a fish you know it's hard to fight yeah and when you do that I never like I saw you do it but your cast now you're retrieving real slow and eventually just feel the hook find its spot and then yeah well it depends on if they're laying on the bottom or if they're on the top if they're on the top I don't real slow I try to real fast I want the gator to be there in the hooks here I want to set the hook when it's getting close I don't want them to feel it I want to drive it into them really fast because he's going to explode yeah and you'll get a better hook set but if they're on the bottom you literally have to real slow and take a seam and then you got to hope it's not a rock or a log but you know and set the hook yeah it's hard as you can and you messed around in the past like I know that that you preferred way now is running the rods with snagging hooks but you've messed around the past all kinds of ways to hunt gators yeah I know like that's what I was saying it's an evolution like I mean the guy that runs our local processing plant he actually helped me a bunch when I was really starting to guide and get into it and I'm like man I'm just having a hard time getting these bigger gators you know and I got into bow hunting with a crossbow we did that at night and in the beginning when we did it we were like the only ones out there we would make our lights red I'd take a red magic marker on a aircraft landing light and we make our own there's a light right here make your own red light yeah we would just go around and it was really tricky you couldn't shine the light right at the gator you want to shine it above them I would cut like a beer can or coke can so that the halo wouldn't be as bright on the bottom and he hold it like on a maybe 20 degree angle over top of you're shining the beam up you know if you've ever been in the woods if somebody's shining a light at you you can't tell up their 10 feet or 10 miles away you know and that's if you just take it really slow and you can't have anybody else shining lights around then we would just troll in motor close with a with a harp or a crossbow with that thing lit by the kind of the periphery of the light yeah you're just you're just wanting to barely see the little bit of red in the eye and I was not touching on them at all until I got within range of shooting a crossbow item and then when they were ready I would lower it down on the on that thing and then you could shoot the crossbow what distance from 30 yards in we were we could shoot from 30 yards in and we made our own arrows and we had our broomstick with a little float you know so and how out of that crossball how you attach and how are you running a line attached to that bolt we would just take the fiberglass fish bolts and get a piece of aluminum arrow that's lit over it perfectly and epoxy that in there and an epoxy a half moon knock in the end of it you know and then we would drill a hole in the side of the aluminum and into the thing and I would epoxy a swivel in there with the ring sticking out so you could run the line through the swivel down to like a muddy point or like those points I used for the hard puns so it was removable like you know the arrow would go into the gator and it would fall off but it was on your line and then you had them on the ground whatever we do has to have a line attached you can't just shoot an arrow at a gator without a line on it that's the law apart and and what was that line and on an external spool yeah I was using Zebco 808s okay there's a friend of mine it was really good out he really coached me on it and I started getting pretty good at it but you that was hard hunting you were like you get out at dark and you're watching the sun come up I mean a lot of stuff could go wrong those sometimes if the line dried out you know before we even hunt we would shoot it into the water get the line wet and reel it back up okay make it all moist and on them if we went too long or didn't reel up right sometimes it would shoot out it would break the line and you would lose the whole rig sure yeah or if the a lot of times my customers would shoot at what they could see I'd try to coach them you can't shoot at the what you can see because you're seeing the head you have to visualize like behind the head where the valley is but that's what we call it you'll see the back in the head and it'll be a little valley you know you want to aim at the valley if the wall if the arrow hit the water in front of it there was perfect because it would level out like a torpedo and just come up right in them you know and then that was that would be the best shot but nine times out of 10 people would shoot at the head it would skip off the head and you'd lose another area yeah well how why did you guys move away from that crossbow style hunt because everybody started doing it and it was getting harder like all of a sudden we're going out gator hunting you know and I then that's when I was really starting to get in the guide and then everybody and their brother just red lights everywhere gators were getting really spooky they evolved with the harpoon and deal and then they started learning about the red lights and they got lightshi oh you just hit a you could hit a gator a quarter of a mile away with your light soon gone yeah got it got it it was just hard like a gator arms yeah so we had to figure out something else would you move to from there we moved debating them uh you know I was for years thinking about just gotta be a better way it's gotta be a better way and it it wears you out my wife would answer my phone for me because I was nocturnal I would I would be up all night gator hunting and I'd sleep most of the day uh so I'm like talking to the that once again that processor and there's these two old guys that kept getting bringing in these huge gators all the time to the processor and I'm like I'm like what in the world is are they doing he said Bob they're doing something with chicken and I'm like really he goes I think they're putting spray foam in them I'm like really and then a light bulb went off at my head because I'd been playing around with bait but I was taking like pieces of conduit out in the lake with a sledgehammer and pounding conduit into the bottom of the lake yeah and and attach them like with like you know uh close pen or something hanging like pieces of chicken out yeah but I'd have gator swim right up to it I'm like oh here we go here we go and they swim up to and see the metal and look at the device we had there and then they didn't have nothing to do with it so they're like but so they're smart enough to know something's up I know everybody thinks a gator has a pea brain size they're they're brains the size of a pea and I think they're dumb there's but they're not dumb they have that god-given natural you know will to live and like to see a PVC pipe or whatever in the ground there's a chunk of chicken hanging out he sees that and he knows and ain't right yeah but I mean that in a way yeah I think that's part of it but like the the catfish guys that put the big trot lines out they don't like them and my other buddy that bass guides with us he kept on as we need to put they have little buoys with these little flags like they use in sprinkler companies or whatever that's a little metal flag a little flag they put it on there where they can see their buoy to mark their catfish trot lines well on there for them the gators are tuning in on that they'll go right to it I mean it's I don't know they're just smarter than we think like they'll go and work over those catfish trot lines yes I've been like my younger son James we watched one one day was a big gator was the lake was low is like three foot deep and then there was a really long catfish we were bass fishing watching this this big gator was literally backing up down the trot line he would get to the fish he would go under he would come up throw his head up chop that fish it's ripping off the hook and then he would start backing up to the next one and the catfish guys hate them because their lines are extremely long and when they get out there they're all tangled up in big knots and you know they almost have to redo the whole entire thing okay all right folks if you are a whitetail hunter you're going to want to hear this right now we are running the ultimate whitetail giveaway and it's packed with over 23 thousand dollars in prizes including the new Zulu six binoculars from SIG a six five creed more from SIG multi edge three cameras case knives an arc thirty bow from Matthews and a thousand dollar gift card from first light and their new whisper down jacket and pant and a whole other pile of gear from other partner brands and that's not all you can also win a chance to join me mark canyon for a fully guided muzzle loader whitetail hunt at running water hunting hosted by outfitter Jordan bud this is a five day four night december hunt during the muzzle loader season one of the most exciting times to be in a whitetail stand lodging in meals are fully included and the more you spend during the giveaway at first light the more entries you'll earn for a chance to win the entire prize package getting entered is easy just head over to the first light contest page at firstlight.com fill out the entry form and you're in remember for every twenty five dollar spent you get ten additional entries one winner will be selected to win the entire prize pack but don't wait around the giveaway ends monday October 12th 2026 at eleven fifty nine p.m. so so continue that story of that that you were trying that you're trying staking a bait out and hanging it from something yeah I did that for a while and then and that but yeah I it was later on when that man told me oh I think they're they're they're spray foam in them and sewing them a chicken up and I'm like wow it just went off in my head so when I first started doing that I was using like regular sized chickens and but when you put the spray foam in they go from they just went too big I mean if you want a really big gator it was okay but like you know it had to be a big gator to eat it right away yeah and there's a lot of tricks to it like I started going to Cornish game hands which are small and then you could blow them up and you got to have the law is you have to you can't we can't use a hook in the state yeah I think it's important to people understand you're not talking about a conventional J hook or a treble hook no buried into a chicken no and I asked the I asked an old timer what would make the state come up with these rules like this because I used to say the our rules you might as well tell us to tie one hand behind our our back and try to catch a gator because one we got a hunt at night two we can't use a hook you know in our bait I'm like what's the purpose of that and he said Bob there was this old family trapping family I knew some old man named Norman Paget and his family they were I'm talking about like 50 60s or whatever they did they did a lot of trapping they did a lot they sold a lot of gator hot there was a black market per gator hot okay they made they made a living doing that in the coaching gator turtle trapping gator trapping you know all that stuff well they said the reason they used the what our rule is we got to use a two inch wooden peg but I don't know why they catch a hook yeah they they came up with that we'd make a leader with the two inch wooden thing he said the reason they used the uh the wood peg is like Bob these guys were like poor they didn't have the money they go kill an old marsh rabbit and go find a little stick and we'll let down like a point on each end and stick it up in the rabbit and have a little tether on the end of it and that way when the gator swallowed it he couldn't burp it out and they would catch the gator and kill it with it and those guys the game commission got them in the meeting when they were eventually when they were starting the the program and they got they asked them how they do it and they said they don't use a hook they use this wooden peg and and according to that man that's how it happened got it and to this day we're not allowed to use a hook we have to use a two inch wooden dow. Yeah. We We sent one down to a gator, a Cornish game head down to a gator, and we were in a situation we were able to play the current, like we're in the river, swamp on each side, river knowing around, and we knew there was a gator way down the river, and we just sent that thing floating down like a presented vape, yeah, and it got even with him and man that sucker comes out, and I thought he'd go think about it for a minute or so, but he didn't think about it, comes out, and you had said to me, if he takes it, you'll see his tail come out and his head come out as he gulps it back and he swam out and suck that thing down immediately, yeah, we just barely got set up, sometimes we got to sit for an hour or more and mess with it, but that one there, he was wanting it, yeah, so then when you do that, explain like how that then works out, explain what your rig is, I know you're giving away all your trade secrets here, I don't care anymore, you know, the tail end of my career, and I don't really care, and everybody's figuring it out, but in the beginning I was very secretive, and I wouldn't tell people stuff, and then when I see people with the, trying to imitate the baits we're doing, and I was getting mad, they're like, oh my God, well, then I realized there's more to it than just knowing how to make the bait, there's also, you got to be far enough away from them or they don't think that the boat has anything to do with it, and my old game, we ran into that too, we ran into where we kind of accidentally got by one and presented that bait to him, that dude was like, uh, man, he wasn't having it, he's like, no way dude, he's like, he put together his head like that noise up there has something to do with that bait and I want nothing to do with that bait. And then, and then the other problem you'll have if you're too close, yeah, sometimes they might shoot out and grab it like that one we did, and but they won't, you have to have them swallow it right away. Yeah. If they think that they got something to do with the boat, or it's not right, they don't know what it is, they'll grab the bait and they'll turn around and they'll just start swimming. Yeah. And I've had them do it before, and they'll go and go and they'll swim through trees or in the vegetation, and, you know, I've, I've had them do it before where I have to lay in the boat and just dig vegetation, I mean, for hours, it's probably why my back's messed up. Yeah, I understand dig vegetation. Like, well, we used to have really thick weeds in the lake. They would swallow, they're so much like carrying that bait. Yeah. And I would have to pull the line and dig, dig, dig, and I could go like, I would have somebody else driving the boat. I'm laying on my belly in the front, just digging, digging, digging, and then I moved the boat three feet, dig, dig, dig, it might take me an hour to get close enough to the gator. Yeah. To get to them. And you got that rod rigged up where you got how many, like how many yards of, explain the setup? Well, I mean, that's the way I do it. A lot of people do it different. Some people braid it line, it's expensive. Yeah. And we're using lines, reels that hold three, four hundred yards of line. And the original reason I did it was because I didn't want to spend all that money, you know, putting that much line on the, on the real. So I started, I used to do a lot of ocean fishing and I used my ocean technology. I just use 30 pound high visibility yellow line. Yeah, it was that night. It's easy to see it with the spotlight. So at the last 60 to 80 yards, I would have 150 pound test, like power pro line. Yeah. And like when we were going to get the gator, if he swallowed it, you got to make sure they swallowed it. I would just, we would just recover the line with hardly any tension. Yeah. Until we get all the way down onto the braid and get. Yeah, you're basically just tracking him. Yeah. You pulling that line up. Yeah. But he doesn't know yet something's going on. No. Oh, yeah, he kind of does, but you don't want to put pressure. Like I'm always telling everybody, do not pressure him until we get on the main line, you know, and the other advantage of that is I try to tell people not hunt on weekends. You know, we have a lot of bass tournaments here. I used to fish him all the time too, but you know, we'd be out set up on a gator and we're 150, 200 yards away. And here comes a bass tournament and all these bass boats hauling butt and they're going across our line. Well, the, the mono would sink. You know, and they would run right over it, not have a, I've never had a boat hit my line. Okay. But you know, a lot of people just go straight braid all the way. Yeah. I, I, I think there's advantages to the mono and how secure, like if he takes that Cornish game in and he swallows it, how secure is that thing in there? It's really secure. Like that's a one way passage. Yeah. I mean, very rarely I've ever had a one burp it out. Yeah. And most of the time, if they do burp it out, it's like at the end of the fight when they're really tired and they're, and they're blowing air out and it's over and all said, boot, the bait will pop out. Got it. Yeah. But I, I've taken a 12 footer on a table before we're cleaning it and put a welding glove and I, a lot of people use parachute cord, but like I said, I use my old ocean technology. I use like braided cable leader by about three foot. I took a welding glove and wrapped my hand around it in the beginning to see if it would come out. We open the gators mouth and I, you could not pull that bait out of that gator. Yeah. Yeah. Um, that kind of like, that's kind of where you landed on your strategy. Yeah. Which is snagging hook. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, all of a sudden, I went from killing mediocre gators to killing trophy gators a lot. People are like, how are you killing all these gators? Yeah. And the new evolution now, and you should talk about the new evolution now. It's forward facing solar electronics. Yeah. Explain now. I mean, you've been your bass fisherman. You've always used electronics to fish. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, people have been doing it for probably three or four years now. Okay. I've only, this is only my second or third year doing it. I still, I'm still learning. And it's some places are easier than others when you get in a river or a channel where there's moving water. There's a little bit of turbulence. It's, it's harder to see good and more defined. But like last year, it was like taking candy from a baby like, it was like three to five foot deep in the lake. Um, and I could find a gator like 70 to 80 yards away, and then go all the way up to them within, I would get within 30 to 50 feet and start zooming in. He thinks he's hidden. Yeah. He's not moving. You know, I've, and I've seen it before too where I hit him with the hooks and they come off and they'll shoot one way. I'll see the surge of the water and the bubbles go. And I'll just, you know, calm down, get my hook back and I'm just kind of trolling over there and keep looking. Sometimes my customers start yacking and they get bored back there. I turn on, I got two units so they can see it in the back. They'll all be talking, talking. I'm just up there concentrating. And then I'm like, I'm getting ready to cast on a big gator if you guys are interested. But to think about that, I don't know if you realize this, probably do. And the time we did the two days we just hunted, we hunted hard two days. Very hard. Yeah. So I should point out that you file your treble hooks barbless, you pinch your barbs. Yeah. And I thought you pinched your barbs to be nice to the gator, but you're pinching your barbs. One reason is there. The skin's hard and it's hard to get it in there. It's hard to get a purchase on it. Yeah. But I want to point out that we, the barb was pinched. The barbs were pinched. You've, you did find a gator with Ford Facing Sonar. Early on. Yeah. Found a gator with it. Yeah. Had a good idea how big it was, hooked it. We got it up and popped the hook and let it go. Yeah. The other gators, the two gators we killed, and another gator we rassled with, it didn't come into play. Yeah. I mean, as far as coming out, no, no, I'm saying, those weren't Ford Facing Sonar gator. Oh, yeah. No, the two good ones we killed and we did it without it. Yeah. But I feel good about that. Yeah. But I mean, we, like, I saw how effective it was and I was getting my mind like, well, that must be how it is now. Yeah. But then the way circumstances played out on our other, on the gators that were like the big, the big, nice gators we got, how certain stances played out. It was totally old school. Yeah. That's why I think, I mean, the first year I had it was the first home of the year. I got this guy. I think he was from Ohio. I hadn't even got the scout because I was, I just got my boat rigged up. I was when I got my, my, the boat we use, it was brand new. I got all the electronics hooked up and I didn't get the scout. But I know the area good. I've been killing gators there for years and I looked with my binoculars and I'm like, oh my God, it was like a big gator every 50 yards as far as you can see. So I turned on the sonar thing and I'm trolling motor and over there and I'm looking for this thing. And I can't figure nothing out. No, I just, I just remember Sam. I've never killed a gator with this electronic pull crap. I'm just going back to the old way. Yeah. And I'm trolling over it over where I saw a big gator go down and I threw a bait out and just trolling motor to way and he came up and it was just like that one you saw. He popped up and said, oh, he ate it right away. We worked the whole hunt was over in like 25 minutes. - Yeah, yeah. - Nowadays, how many Gator Hunts are you doing nowadays? And I know you're actually, you're kind of half joking, but you keep talking about that you can do this forever. But how many Gator Hunts are you doing? - Right now, I think last year I killed like 16. And I used to kill, I didn't kill a whole bunch ever. I killed like 20 to 25 a year. - Okay. - And now I'm killing like 14 to 16 a year. I don't even know if I'll hit that this year. - So you turn business down now? - Yeah, not really turn it down. I'm just more selective. - Yeah. - And a lot of my customers are gonna repeat customers. - But they got to draw the tag. But here's the other thing I'd like you to explain is how the tag, like a tag holder, 'cause it's getting a Gator's a group effort. - Oh yeah. - So when someone has a tag, a tag holder needs to be present. But it's not like the tag holder is themselves the only person participating. It's like the boat has a tag holder. 'Cause everybody in the boat's gonna come into play. - Yeah. - Fightin' a Gator, right? - So when you have clients, you have clients who have one lottery draw, Gator Tags. - Yeah. - That's the first step that has to happen. - Some of them draw their own tags. And, you know, I don't need a tag holder on that. And sometimes I got people that wanna go. They don't, maybe they didn't, like you didn't get tags this year, I didn't either. But I had friends and I put in a lot of people to get 'em. And the tag holder has to be in the boat. And everybody else has to buy an alligator trapping agent license to be legal. Anybody touching any of the equipment has to have a license. - Yeah, so that's what we all had. We had that trapping agent license. - I even have one, 'cause I don't have a trapping license. - Got it, got it. So that's what you're doing now. You're doing 14, 15 Gators, yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah. I didn't know this until recently. And I was kind of surprised by it as well. Explain this egg thing you're involved in, egg collection. - Yeah, I don't know if they'll like it a whole lot. They don't like publicity, but I mean, it's not, it's all legal. We just try to fly under the radar. We hit, we're, it's almost like a military operation. We hit a lake, we're in, we're moving fast and we're out. But, but what though? Well, the guys that I worked for have been doing it since 1988 when it started. - Okay. - And there was one of the biologists that was in the beginning, he's retired now. He candles the eggs for us and we have to have a biologist from the state overseeing us to make sure that we're not breaking laws in the numbers that it's all about the money. And they're always checking the count. I'll make sure it's all about the money. The state makes a lot of money off of the eggs. - Okay. - But we use air boats, we have two crews, we cover the whole state, but not everybody on water. Every year they give us a license and we have designated lakes we can go to and quotas for each lake. - Yup. - Some lake or, you know, you could get 100% of the nest. Some were 50, some were 25. We have like three or four air boats on each crew a pontoon boat, we call it the egg boat and a helicopter. So the helicopter has the two guys that run it that have been doing it since the beginning, we hire a helicopter guy and they spot the nest from the air and we all wear radio equipment like we got on here and they're like, "I need a boat." And we got to go take off and we were moving fast. We got a hull but to the helicopter. It's in some of the places we go or not where people ride. We got our air boats are designed to go in places that are bad. We carry chainsaws, machetes, axes. We get stuck a lot. We got to turn around and go back out the same way we came in. They look for the nest, the nest can be like that high. It's just piled up vegetation like a dome. - So when you held your hand up, you're saying it could be four feet above the water? - Yeah, three to four feet, yeah. - So they'll find the nest, call us to 'em and then we go to 'em and they also have, every nest has to be GPS and they keep a list. They're constantly checking with the guy, the biologist on the pontoon boat, where are we at and with the numbers? Like how many do we have it? They call it in the bank. - Good. - Like if we break even then we gotta find some more nest and not open 'em. But the hill tells us, "Hey, we got 10 in the bank." Okay, so we can get 10 more and we keep going. And he finds something that we would waste too much time trying to get to, they're in really bad places. So he puts 'em in the bank. But when we get there, we all carry a helper and I just carry it like a parting stick for cattle 'cause there's usually mama on every nest. You know, probably about 50, 60% of the time there's no gators there. - Okay. - That between the helicopter noise, 'cause sometimes the helicopter comes way down load to look and make sure it's a nest. And then when he calls us in, he gets up a little bit and backs away 'cause their air will mess us up. He'll just sit there and point out the window, you know. We get there, then we gotta open up the nest. We take a little basket and put some of the nesting material in about maybe four inches deep, you know, back and all down. And how many eggs will be in there? - The average nest is like 20, about 20 to 30 eggs in a nest. But it's not unusual to find one with 40 or 50 eggs in it. - Okay. - When they say only one in 10 in the wild will survive. So that's what I imagine on this egg deal is you get like, there's a carrying capacity to the lake. Like the lake's gonna support or the body of water is gonna support a certain number of gators. And if you remove some percentage of eggs, it's not gonna affect that n number of how many adult gators can be in the lake. - Some people think, oh, we're taking all the eggs, so we're not gonna have any gators, but just take like a gacholi, for instance. I mean, that, we get a lot of eggs off a gacholi. And the numbers are always way up. - Yeah. - It's not really making a dent in the problem. - I can understand that. Yeah, like when Sam go up and spawn, it's not like every one of those eggs turns into a salmon. Like the system is gonna support so many. - Yeah. - And that's what the system is gonna support. And there's an excess of eggs in some ways. - Plus, we're not finding every single mess. - Yeah. - I mean, we try to go around the edge of the lake and stay within a hundred yards of the edge. - Okay. - They can nest miles back in there. We don't know. - So you get the eggs in a basket, then what happens? Like what, what, yeah. So they don't need to be incubated or they do. - Yeah, they do. They take them to an incubator, but we got to be really careful. They tell us it's like a hurry up and then slow down. We got a hurry, hurry, hurry. But when we get to the nest, we got to slow down. - Yeah. - And you got to, our helper, we take really good magic markers. They got to, before they take the egg out of the nest, they got to mark it, align across it. Where the top part is. Because there's an air bubble inside the egg. And that's where the embryo attaches into the shell. - Okay. - They pull it over. It will drown them. - Oh, so you need to orient that egg in the same position? - Yeah. - They have to be. And every year, the first couple of days, the biology son of boat, he's always honest. Somebody's not marking them right. You know, like, okay, okay, okay. Well, we get them all in there and lined up right. And then, then we cover them back up with material. And we try not to haul too many, like in my boat. I mean, if the pontoon boats way out of position, I'd put as many as eight, 10 crates of eggs in my boat, but we don't want too many, 'cause we're riding rough areas and bouncing. We don't want to bounce them around and all that. Then we run them out to a pontoon boat. - And then what it happens to them? - Then that's where that retired biology says, they got a big box with a curtain over it. And he sticks his head in there and he has to candle every egg. And not every egg is good. Like, we might bring in a nest. There might not be any good eggs in it. - Oh, really? - Yeah. - He's got some corrugated little pipe and he looks at them and if they're no good, they get right out that pipe. And then the other ones, they re-box them again into another, the cardboard box. Yeah, then they line them all up and that's when they come up with their numbers and that's when the biologist's there and they know exactly how many numbers. - Yeah. - They came out of that nest. - And those eggs are going to supply gator farms. - That's correct. - Yeah. - There's some really large gator farms. - And they're buying them. - Yeah. - They're buying them from the state. - Yeah. - They're buying them. That's the way they get their, you know, what they need. - They buy them and they buy the hatchlings also. - And you're working like, I don't even know the exact money, but like, you're working on a day rate. You're working on a percentage of the profit. Like, what's your, what's your take on sale? - They pay us per egg. - Okay. - And like I said, there's two crews, North and South. So in the beginning, they had a problem with competition. Guys are like, I found this many. I got this many and I guess they were paying. I wasn't in it then. They were. - I think they were controversy and people almost fighting and everybody's trying to get more eggs to make more money and then they said enough of that. Enough of that. So they now they got it level plan field. We all get the same money. The damn crew. combined, we all get paid the same money. Got it. But ultimately, who like, who sells the egg? The state sells the egg or the people that have the contract sell the egg? The people that have the contract, they are the ones with the license, but they're licensed by the state. Yeah. And then there's a board of the gator farmers. Yeah. Every year they have the boat. We're never guaranteed we're going to do it every year. I see. They could say, no, we don't want those guys anymore. I got it. They can fire us. But as long as we're doing good and they're hatch rates 80% are better than we don't have nothing to worry about. And there's also in some areas, there's also a market for like a baby gator. Yeah. The same, the same people that buy them. Okay. Do that. And that's another collection thing that happens roughly around the same time of season. Yeah. Well, like eggs all hatch like in September, like we do the egg collection in July. Usually all the nests are made. We start in the first of July or the last day of June. And we do it for like two or three weeks solid. You know, we're going every day. We travel on all over the state. Yeah. Get them. And then there's a little bit of a break. And September first is when we're allowed to get the hatchlings. Yeah. And usually by September 11th or 12th, the corner of the guys I work for, that's when all of them are hatched. Got it. And then we're going to look at it and we can't wait too long because everything eats them. Snakes eat them, blue herons, mouse eat them because they're cute. They're just little small little babies. All right, folks, if you are a whitetail hunter, you're going to want to hear this. Right now, we are running the ultimate whitetail giveaway. And it's packed with over $23,000 in prizes, including the new Zulu six binoculars from SIG, a six five creed more from SIG, multi-edged three cameras, case knives, an arc 30 bill from Matthews, and a thousand dollar gift card from first light. And their new whisper down jacket and pant and a whole other pile of gear from other partner brands. And that's not all. You can also win a chance to join me, Mark Kenyon, for a fully guided muzzle loader whitetail hunt at running water hunting hosted by outfitter Jordan Bud. This is a five day four night December hunt during the muzzle loader season, one of the most exciting times to be in a whitetail stand. Lodging in meals are fully included. And the more you spend during the giveaway at first light, the more entries you'll earn for a chance to win the entire prize package. Getting entered is easy. Just head over to the first light contest page at firstlight.com. Fill out the entry form and you're in. Remember, for every $25 spent, you get 10 additional entries. One winner will be selected to win the entire prize pack. But don't wait around. The giveaway ends Monday, October 12, 2026 at 11.59 pm. Do you feel that gator numbers are gator numbers still going up? I mean, I know that maybe there's concern that there's fewer giant gators around or people see fewer giant gators, but it just seems to me that there are. This is just anecdotal from my perspective. It seems that there, there's a staggering number of alligators and I cannot picture how the systems can support the pounds of alligators. Meaning you look at a bend in the river. Well, let me put it another way first. The first day we were out. I was, I told a couple of friends of mine. I was like, they're literally, literally. During the time I was there, there was no time when you weren't seeing. There was no time when you weren't looking at gators. Yeah. For hours and hours and hours on the end, there was always gators. Yeah. And it'd be that you'll look down the river bank in some places, in some places, especially the place we went first time. Down, down the river bank, you look and there's there's nine. Just lined up like cars parked in a driveway. We went through a lock and there's sort of like this, this rock wall area of a lock. We went through the lock and just parked. And there's six. Yeah. And it's a lock. Loud. Yeah. They're not afraid of that. Well, there's also water flowing through. Yeah. And gators always congregate where water's coming through the structure. They're drawn to that movement. There's a lot of garfish there. There's a lot of food. They're dead fish coming through turtles. And you know, they'll eat the garfish. The garfish are something they catch when I'm eating. Yeah. But the main point I'll make is just it seems like there's so many. And I remember turkey hunting down here a couple years ago. We'd just go for a little drive now and then. And there's a ditch like a drainage ditch. And no big body of water around, but it's a long drainage ditch. And that's lined with gators. I mean, it's like, does it seem to you like there's more and more and more or is it or is it or our populations kind of like flat and stable by this point? I think the numbers are there's more gators now than when I was young. Sure. Because of the way they protect them and all. But there's tons of seven to nine foot gators. Okay. But because of the hunting and everybody evolving with the hunt and more people are baiting gators and stuff, it is getting harder to find gators over 10 foot. You think so? Yeah. I mean, looking at how many gators we looked at. Yeah, but we had a lot of gators give us the slip. Yeah. I mean, you see him way off. Yeah. But I mean, you know, I mean, you can't run a tape measure on them all, but like we saw a lot of gators that were like, well, there's a nice gator and he's gone because he's a hundred yards away and he's. Yeah. And that's like you said, the bigger gators are smart. Yeah. And then we hunted two days and got two gators that were over 10 feet. Yeah. But you feel like even with that, you feel like there's like lower number. Oh, yeah. Back in the early 2000s, the water was low at the mouth of the Kassimi River where we went out yesterday. And we had like 14 foot surf rods with those same treble hooks. And we could wing them almost all the way across the river. And it was, it was nothing to catch a 12 foot alligator. Okay. You could catch them all the time. I mean, I killed them up to 13. There's a couple of buddies of mine got 12 footers mounted in their houses in Wyoming. Yeah. It was, it was easy. But now looking back, I'm like, wow, I missed those days. Yeah. We should establish that, that, uh, explain what a top end to gator is. You mean like a trophy gator? Well, what is the biggest that makes sense? Like you hear people say numbers, but it's probably not true. Like you even said, people say, oh, it's 15 feet. Like I was in 15 feet. No, you know, I'm in, I'm around bass boaters. I fish bass tournaments forever. I can't tell you how many people said, I saw this gator as long as my 21 foot pass, but okay. Yeah. But the state record is only 14 foot. I think it's like six and a half or something right now. Okay. So it's not. I mean, I wouldn't, but but a 13 foot gator is a massive, a massive gator. Yeah. A 12 foot gator is achievable. Yes. You know, an 11 foot gator. If you work hard, you'll find one. Yeah. No. And then like you're saying, the eight or nine foot gator, they're just everywhere. Yeah. If you want to just a meat and a hide gator, you know, eight to nine foot gator, seven to nine foot gator, even six. The smaller they are, the better they eat. And the smaller they are, their hides aren't all beat up. Because the old gators, they get cancer. They've been fighting. They're missing limbs. They got, you know, they got all kind of blemishes in their hide. The best hides are like probably a six to eight foot gator. Yeah. That's, that's the thing I want to touch on real quick. We went to a gator. We dropped our gators at a gator processing. So what's, what's the end of that outfit we went to? Florida trophy gators. Okay. This guy, he's primarily, he was explaining. Wade was explaining. Primarily, we're a gator taxidermy business. But we skin gators. We process meat. We do all the other stuff, but like our kind of our focus is gator taxidermy. Yeah. Um, but you don't need to do that. You can bring, you can drop off a gator. One, they got big walking coolers, so you get your gator, taking care of them. Cool. Processing a hurry butchered that they portion the meat out. They run the meat through a tenderizer. They defat it and you get back, you get back one pound packages are ready to eat gator meat. Yep. We dropped off that one. It was 11 seven. Am I remember right? Yep. 11 seven. And I can't remember what he said. We were expecting like maybe we're going to wind up a 70, 80 pounds of gator meat. Yeah. Off that gator. But he's got all over there. There's signs right now in magic marker. Yeah. Not buying gators. Yeah. Okay. Tell people what's up with why they're signs saying not buying gators. I know some of it, not all of it, but I know that this is the first year I've ever seen that. This is the first year. Yeah. It's never seen that's been my life before. I mean the gator market is getting flooded. Okay. Because all the gator farms and there's more processors. There's more people doing it. And I know Wade was telling us that his freezers were full of meat. They supply restaurants and stuff around here too. And I don't know for what reason or whatever, but the meat markets like flooded. He was sitting on meat from last year. So he's like, that's it. We can't buy anymore gators. And the hides, because of the gator farms and the hide market, the hides are not even worth anything anymore. I had another guy, I just met randomly, a guy from Florida that hunts gators, used to hunt gators. And he was explaining to me, he says, man, the whole wild gator hide thing, the market's dead. He said it's dead because of farm gators, because farm gators can produce consistent, perfect product. And wild gators can't compete with farm gators. So he says, we used to kill wild gators and make good money on hides, good money on meat. But now you've got these people making cookie cutter, perfect gators. And no one wants the gator leather from a wild gator. Some of the gator farms are huge. And one of them I know of, they kill 500 to 1000 gators every day, Monday through Friday. They're processing that many alligators. And they still have a good market, because they're dealing with the, the hide the hide buyers are like the tanneries in Italy and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So when he has that, so here's a guy that he does some restaurant supply stuff. And you know, you drop it off, you get a form, you're like, I want my school all cleaned up. I want my meat, they'll ship the meat to you. I wanted to get the gator stuff. I want it made for leather for boots. Like you can get all this kind of stuff taken care of. But he's not buying. When they, like if you go, go back a few years and tell me some of the ways that, like, what would be some of the prices that you could bring in? Like you go on a gator hunt, you just, you don't want nothing to do with the gator. You get a 10 foot gator. You'd go in and it'd be, he'd buy it for what per foot or what per foot? Not just him, but the market in general. Yeah, originally, before the gator firms got really big, they wanted the bigger gators. Okay. You know, like 10, 11, 12 footers, they were paying more. And you know, I had problems with my business years ago and got down on money. And we weren't, we weren't guidance much. We were, I was selling the hides to Wade's dad. Yeah. And that was what was putting bread on the table for me. I mean, we were getting like 20, $30 a foot or more for the bigger, the bigger the gator, the more we got. You know, and he was just, you could go out some night, get a 10 footer and just walk in five or six hundred dollars cash money on my hand right there. Right now you, like the other couple of years ago, I had one tag left, Wade and I went and killed a nine foot gator. I think I got, I think 180 bucks or something. Got it, you know, and you know, got it after you get it, you know, do nothing. No, you just bring it there, they buy the whole thing, you know, they lift it off, throw a tape measure on it and pay you by foot. Yeah. Yeah. So do you feel that that since he's now like, not buying gators in the markets different, do you feel that that is going to reduce interest in gator hunting or do you think there's such a recreational gator hunting culture that it doesn't matter that they're valueless? No, I don't think it's ever, the hunting is ever going to go down. I think it's a novelty kind of a hunt. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. A buddy of mine, Sam Heaton, he's, he helps me sometimes. He tells everybody he's hunting all over the world like you. And he's like, this is the most unique hunting in the North American continent. There's nothing else like it. Yeah. It's like, it's hunting and fishing combined. Yeah, people are like amazed by it and in the danger element, you know, yeah, I've been doing it for a long time. Do you think it's dangerous? It can be. Uh-huh. I didn't get like a danger vibe off him, but you've been doing it a long time. You scared me. Uh-huh. When you were climbing that tree when that one was hung up and you almost fell, I was like, like, he'll grab you. Yeah. I'm like, he's kind of upset. You know, he's got to hook sit on him and you were in a bad spot. Yeah. But you've never had a, I mean, like I say, it didn't seem dangerous because you know what? Because you've seen it a bunch. Yeah. So you're like, well, don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that. But I could see if I just went out and I had never done it before. I could see snagging one of them suckers and getting in real trouble. Yeah. But you're like, okay, step one is this step two is that step three is this and there's a lot of like checks along the way. Yeah. Until toward the end, you're like taping it's, you know, you got his mouth tape shut. You sever his spinal cord. Yeah. You know, when he comes on, when he comes down the boat, he's cashed, but it's like it's a process. Yeah. And you, so I didn't get a danger vibe off it because you just had a way that you know how you do it. It's more dangerous when we do the eggs than it is the, the, the, the hunt. I'm sure. Yeah. Because the, the females, they have that natural maternity thing, or they're going to protect their young. Yeah. Yeah. Do guys come to you? Do you have clients that come to you? And um, they're like, hey, I'm going to try to get these tags. I'm going to apply for the lottery draw for Okeechobee. And when I do it, I'll come find you. Yeah. A lot of people call me up because they want to know, because there's so many areas we can put in for Gator type. They want to know where to put it. Yeah. So I tell them the areas that I like the hunt and they'll call me and put in for those areas. And you've kind of, like I said, I can't tell, I can't tell how much you're joking or not. How many, how many years more Gator hunting you're going to do? Oh, shit. I don't know, man. Let's take a stab, man. Like in 20 years, I can be Gator hunting in 20 years. No, I'm like, I'm going to be Gator hunting 20 years. I'll be lucky to be alive in 20 years. Okay. You can be Gator hunting 10 years. Well, you see my helper, Garrett. That's the thing. Now you got him, you got a young guy. And well, James used to hunt my son. He used to be my helper. Man, him could conquer the world and work together in the marsh, but like Garrett, he has more time to do it. And he did awesome. This is the first time I used him this year, the first time. He's great. He's great. And I can't lift the Gators. I can't. My backdoctor's telling me if I keep doing it, I'm going to end up in a wheelchair. Yeah. Well, you know, I'm just, if long have a good helper, I'm going to keep going. Yeah. Because eventually you can just sit back and be the brains. Yeah. That's kind of what I started doing with Garrett. I mean, he's doing good. You just point this way, point that way. Yeah. That spot and stalk we did yesterday. I used to love doing that stuff, you know, and I can't. What he saw about is what what what kept the bops on was we had a gator down the beach from us. And this gator was no way no hogging to take that bait. No, he wasn't good. God out of the boat, snuck down real tall grass and brush, snuck down and basically crept in on him. Yeah. And we're like ease in the head, ease in the head, preseeing his head out there in the marsh, and then planted a hook, yeah, hooked him, then ran out, waved the boat down, the boat came down, jumped on the boat, chased the gator down, river. Because he was pulling drag, man. I'm not very, many people do this spot and stalk on an alligator. But I like it. That's a cool thing. And yeah, you used to do that and you got to slower to it. I just can't. I have nerve damage on my back and I can't walk it. So, so of all the stuff you guide for, I asked you about this this morning. You didn't give me a satisfactory answer of all the stuff you guide for. Oh, there it comes. Rain and they're check windows and cars. I mentioned when I came in, we're recording this. I was telling the guys, I was telling Seth and Max about this, 1928 Ok Chobie flood. Yeah. Okay. And I'm pulling it up, reading about it. And I'm reading about it. And it happened to be today's date. Today's date is the, it's the 98th anniversary of the Ok Chobie flood, which they debate the numbers, but drowned about 2,500 people. Yeah. South of Lake Ok Chobie. Yeah, from Cluiston, all the way up to Pahokie. And I didn't know this either. There's a mass grave near here. It has about 1,600 people in it. It was really close to where we went fishing today. You know, yeah. I actually knew a guy that was alive, not in that flood. Maybe it was. No, when they, you know, it was when they were building the lock in Cluiston, before they had the die complete. He was a young boy. That guy's passed away now. But the Army Corps engineers had this big, it was kind of like a, it was like a houseboat kind of a thing. And there was a hurricane coming. There was no really good paved roads. The roads going into the Everglades took her paved now. They weren't there yet. Yeah. And they were, they had a little settlement there. They were living in like a little makeshift house thing down there. And there were Army Corps people who went down there and got the family because that boy, that guy that was told me his story was a young boy then. They got him over there and got him in that boat with them. And they tied the boat up. The lock wasn't even complete, but it has two big concrete walls. You know, the doors weren't on or nothing. And they tied the boat up really good in the middle of it because of the hurricane. And he, all he remembered was like, for half the hurricane, the boat was tilted one way and then the eye of the storm came and it went and then it went back the other way. That was, yeah, no, that was after the flood, that was after the flood. We'll get off the subject, but just I'm just bringing it up 'cause it's raining on the anniversary of that flood. But I was reading too that a lot of people were killed by water moccasins that were, 'cause people were up on rooftops and so yeah, hanging on the trees and all these snakes are also, oh, and they're trying to crawl out of the water and to crawl out of the water where there are people and people are getting killed by moccasins. Yeah, terrible. There was, yeah, there's an island down, down between Belglade and Clueston. It's called Rida Island and there was a settlement there. There was no heavy equipment then, you know, and everybody, they were just old school. They were, had mules and stuff and they were just getting up mocc, making an earthen barrier to have a farm and they build houses. There was a post office there and that's one of the areas where you're saying they were houses got trash and people had to keep going up in the house and holding on to the addicts, holding on to trees, it was really a bad situation. You see this hat says Bear Geese, yeah, that's a podcast we do in our networks, hosted by a guy named Clay Newcombe, who's a southerner. I texted him today, that's a podcast about southern culture, southern history. I texted him today and told him he needs to do a Bear Geese series or an episode on the Okeechobee flood and I think that he will, so when it comes out, let's listen to it. Let's get back to my last question. You've got a ducts, snipe, crappies, blue gills or shell crackers, gators. I asked you, what do you like more? Like, what one do you wake up and you're most excited about the day? This is for guiding or me personally. This is pretty good of a time you're going to have that day. I like guiding hundreds more than fishermen, but I am a fisherman. I like fishing. People ask me, do you ever get burnt out with fishing? I'm like, no, I get burnt out, taking people fishing, but I don't get burnt out personally fishing. But, I mean, if I had to give everything up, I would fish. Okay. Is that a fight? Yeah. But you like gator hunt? I love gator hunt. I've been messing with gators ever since I was a little kid. My dad used to whip me with his fishing hunt. I do got one last question for you. What would be as a guide? If you could convey one message to the clients out there in the world, it's like you're the guide, and you're able to speak, like, this is the guide. I wish all you people understood this. I don't know. That's a hard one. I'm going to look kind of of a guide that I try to accommodate everybody no matter where they're at. Okay. I will get out of my way to do that. I think that's one of the reasons why I've been a successful guide. You don't have a single, you don't have one pet peeve that you could pass along to America's clients. No, I don't think so. Really? That's a polite guy, man. I am very. People always tell me, why are you so nice? I don't know. You're a nice guy. I just like to see people get with their after, and I work my tail off to do it. Sometimes people. You get a little fish in your day and sat over here behind them. You can't see them over here. He was having a heck of a time getting that hook hung up on them rocks. What'd you think about that? I knew it was going to happen. It was all right. You were fine with that. All them rocks he was hooking. I guess the thing that ticks me off, you want to really know what ticks me off, okay? Please, yeah. Do you want to know what it takes me up? Seth out fish me out. Don't you notice that? Yeah. He did good. He jumped off a couple of tarpins and had some hits. Okay. Anyhow. Here's the pet peeve. I want to end on a negative. We get people in the bait shot. I'm half a week. I got my coffee. I'm trying to think about where I'm going, what I'm doing. They get in the boat and they start telling me their fishing stories. They're fishing stories. They're like that. I don't like. None of the guys like it. No. I mean, my buddy. You know why they're doing that? They're doing that because they want you to take them seriously. Then when you see them handle the equipment, you're like, "It's a miracle. It has to be a comic Aussie fish." Yeah. Because they're sitting there. They're like, "Here it is. He's like the guide. He probably thinks I'm some rube. I need to tell him that I'm a man's man too. I'm going to show him my fishing pictures." I could be. I could be. But they don't realize we're stressing in the morning. People don't realize this. They think, "Oh, you're a fishing guy. What a dream job." You just take people fishing. I'm like, "Yeah, but it's not a dream job. We're stressing." Right now, the lake is not fishing the best that it ever did. When they're coming, they're introducing themselves and telling us their stories. And I'm thinking, "My mind's going 90 miles. Should I go here? Should I go there? Where should I go?" I need to get this done. And I'm trying to listen to them and remember their name. And I'm like, "Oh, you know, but it's stressful. Let's roleplay for a minute." You don't say nothing. From the guy, you're the client. We get in the boat. I go, "Listen. Okay, you're the client. I'm the guy." I'm like, "Listen. I know. I know you are a fantastic fisherman. I already know. You don't need to tell me. Maybe you just kill that whole thing right then and there. If you just come clean, I know you're the best fisherman that's ever walked. You're the greatest fisherman that's ever walked. I'm blessed to be in a boat with you. I don't even need to see the proof because I just know. What really cracks us up, we always laugh about the other guys too. The guys that get in the boat, and they're all jazzed up, and they're coming to Lee Cook and show me. 10 pounders are jumping in the boat. I'm feeling that 10 pounder today. And right away, I'm like, "Probably ain't going to happen." But the guys that come and they're all amped up and they're bouncing off the wall about catching the 10 pounder, they don't do too great. The guy that comes and just wants to relax and is enjoying being out there, and all laid back, they're the ones that happen the best days. It never fails. So that's ultimately to seriously end it on a positive note. To clients out there, relax. Yeah. Take in the experience. Yeah. You don't need to prove nothing to me. I'm going to try to help you have a great day fishing. That's what our job is. Let's just keep this simple. Yeah. What does this show it out? Show it out here? Yeah. Yeah. I do enjoy it, though. No, you must keep been doing a long time. You're good at it, man. It's fun to hang out with you in the boat. Tell people real quick how to find you. My business name is Okeechobee Charters. You can find it on the web, Okeechobeecharters.com. And I'm also hooked up with Garrett's tackle in Okeechobee. You can call them. You know. There are real names, Garrett's, everybody calls it Girard. Oh, Garrett's. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Okay. I read that wrong. And that's where you go to get you morning coffee. Yeah. Yeah. In our bait and all. In our ice. We get all our supplies for the day. Yeah. So for the gator and the things, when is the gator draw in Florida? The gator draw is usually in May, around May 1st, we got to get ready to draw. I don't know. Sometimes they change it a little bit, but. Well, someone might want to shoot you an email prior to that date. Yeah. But April to May, you need to contact me if you're in the restaurant and see what they need to do. Yeah. And I can show. I'll tell them. I help people fill out the forms because there's a lot of stuff to fill out. And then if anyone needs some gator, me, hit me and set up. Yeah. You guys got to sit free. Sit free. Sit free. Rich on gator. All right, man. Thanks for coming on the show. Hey, buddy. Appreciate it. It's been a real pleasure and a real pleasure to watch you do your thing. And man, I learned a ton. We were talking about that before we came over. How much we learned over that couple days. Cool. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Yeah. Thank you. I want to get you on that airboat one day. I've been on your airboat. Not this one. I've been on an airboat with you. Yeah. Not that airboat with you. Yeah. Thanks everybody. [MUSIC PLAYING] The best part of a whitetail sit is often the part you have to earn. The temperature drops. Nothing's moving. And climbing down starts sounding pretty good. That's why First Light built Whisper Down. With 900 fill power, Muscovy Down, boxbathal construction, and quiet water resistant fabric, it delivers serious warmth without weighing you down. First Light Whisper Down, pack light, stay longer. Check it out now at FirstLight.com. This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.