CLARION-LEDGER (Jackson, Mississippi) 25 September 05 Chhhhhomp! Hey, wait! It's my boat! (Bobby Cleveland)
You know that sound of a fingernail being scraped across a blackboard and how it bothers you to the very core to hear it, making you scrooch-up not only your face but your whole body?
That's kind of what it feels like when you hear an alligator bite an aluminum boat, and then grind on it.
Chomp! chomp!
Scraaaaaaape!
It makes you shudder inside and outsi ...
"Hey, wait just a #@&%@&% minute.
"That's my #@%^@&% boat that #@&%@&% alligator is chewing on."
"Bob," Woodie Reaves said, "he seems to like how it tastes. I hope you're not too partial to that pretty blue paint job on the gunnel there.
"Oh, wait, there goes the rubber bumper guard. He got that, too."
I wasn't laughing and quickly surveyed the situation.
"Hey, get my trolling motor out of the water!" I hollered. "Quick, before that #@&%@&% alligator bites the #@&%@&% foot off it."
The bad part of the whole situation was that it wasn't even 8 p.m. yet and we were only getting started. This gator was just a warm-up for us.
At 8-feet, despite having a mouth full of boat-scraping teeth, this one would be cut loose so, I guess, he could grow and get even meaner, and so we could go catch one that would finish off my #@&%@&% boat.
"The big boys we're looking for don't even come out good until 10 or so," Reaves said. "Just imagine what an 11- or 12-footer will be like."
'... need a bigger boat'
Reaves was playing Capt. Quint to my Chief Brody.
"Well, Quint," I said, "we're going to need a bigger boat.
"We are going in to get a bigger boat right? Aren't we?"
Of course, I really didn't think we needed a boat bigger than my 181/2-foot Tracker. You know, the one that used to have the pretty blue paint job.
Any boat other than mine would do just fine, thank you.
I'm still trying to get all the carp crap out of it from my run-in with the flying silver fish on the Mississippi River earlier this summer.
And, now, this.
Humbling thought
Seriously, though, until that irate 8-foot alligator started chewing on my boat, I hadn't really grasped exactly what it was we were doing.
We were in a battle with a creature that could, in the wrong situation, eat me.
That was a very humbling moment for me.
I'm telling you, that freaking alligator tried to eat my freaking boat.
Now, granted I'm a big ol' boy, but I am not near as big as my bass boat. If that stupid gator was mad enough, or bad enough, to try and eat a boat, and we were looking for one at least a third again as big, well, by all means ...
Fortunately, our night ended with a total of 15 feet of alligator. That 8-footer that Lee Benoist caught and a 7-footer that I later reeled in and released.
Oh, well, season doesn't end until tonight.
Maybe a bigger boat is in order.
Chhhhhomp! Hey, wait! It's my boat!