NEWS-PRESS (Fort Myers, Florida) 15 August 07 Gator hunting thrilling, but I'll stay home (Byron Stout)
The 20th annual public waters alligator hunt will begin this evening with me watching the news on television. And that's not because I don't think hunting alligators is exciting.
Truth be known, there aren't many more exciting things to do that still are legal or at least morally defensible.
First, you're dealing with critters that, in the full-grown adult male versions, can chomp with 3,000 pounds per square inch of pressure behind 74 to 80 teeth the size of snow cone cups. For a bull gator, a 10-pound red-bellied turtle is a mere meat ravioli.
Not only are gators powerful, they are blindingly fast. And if their bite isn't bad enough, they're happy to knock your brains loose with a slap of the tail.
The setting, of course, is way out in the swamps. At night.
I even love getting geared up for alligator hunting. I've labored long over harpoons cable-rigged with detachable points filed to a fare-thee-well. I've pondered the efficacy of duct tape versus tie-wraps for securing trapdoor jaws and dragon claws. And I've dreamt of gators I'd rather have not.
Besides the anticipation, there's the doing — the eyeshine of a gator glinting back across inky waters. There's the strike and the whitewater explosion, and the bangstick poised over a rope stretched tighter than a banjo string.
After which are the inevitable hero shots, with happy hunters proudly posed over gaping jaws, giddily propped open with a brown, longneck bottle.
After which, an alligator hunt is pretty much all downhill. Before you know it, you've got maybe 10 feet of boiler-plated reptile to sell or clean.
If you sell it, you offset the cost of your $271.50 alligator trapper's license. But you've got doodly to show for the hours of prep time and the expense of a lot of equipment that is good for precious little else.
If you've never cleaned a gator, you may be surprised at how incredibly unlike a fish it is. The back plates, or scutes, are hard enough to repel a .44 Magnum, and the skin just does not let go of the meat.
Clean a fish, and you get about 40 percent of the total weight back in tender, white meat. Clean a 10-foot gator and you get back 40 pounds of meat that varies from white and kind of tender, to red and capable of choking a garbage disposal.
If you hire a professional gator processing plant to skin, scrape and salt your gator, you will pay about $25 per foot for the hide, and $2 and $3 per pound for the dark and white meat, respectively.
Tanning for a mount is $30 per foot. Not to mention any expense of sweet-talking one's significant other into letting the epitome of prehistoric ugliness into the house.
You might be better off just going online and buying an alligator checkbook wallet for $650, or an alligator briefcase for $3,600.
For my part, I'll be happier watching the war in Iraq from my La-Z-Boy.
Gator hunting thrilling, but I'll stay home