So as a regular working guy, who lives in a regular working world, on a regular working guy’s budget I always perk up when I see anything going on in the fishing/boat world that seems to be a reasonable deal. Recently I stumbled across a boat that came out late last year from a small builder here in Florida that seemed to have potential.

No names, just facts, she’s a tiny 14′ skiff with just the absolute essentials (minus a few here and there). The boat may ride nice, might be pretty quick, might be a stable fishing platform. It also might not come with any lights, rub rail, or well anything else. The introductory pricing looks to be just north of $2800 with a trailer, and after you add the 25hp outboard the boat is rated for you’re in the $6500 range. You know as well as I do that a push pole, lighting, battery, wiring, cleats, and safety equipment will shove you off of the $7500 cliff before your credit cards can say stop. (Yeti cooler and face condom extra naturally)

Deal? Maybe to some.

Too small? Kinda.

Does that mean I’m a fatbody? Yes

More overpriced fiberglass in a waaaay smaller package missing some bits? Definitely.

Nice to see someone trying to do something a hair different than the high dollar guys? Sure…

If you’ve ever seen the site before you might have gathered that part of The New Angler posse is from the home of your Florida Gators and birthplace of some great music, a little University town I like to call Gainesville Rock City, USA. Here’s a relatively new joint from Hot Water Music that we dig.

Saving money and waiting for the perfect deal on the perfect boat started to get unbearable so I decided to get into the kayak game. I figured for a few hundred beans I could have something to curb my appetite until I could get the boat I’ve been waiting for. Plus they come in bright yellow.

I always thought that kayaks were pretty much bullshit, and there is a ton of stuff about them that is, but they work out pretty well in the right situations. I managed in my first couple of trips to catch some decent little fish in some areas that I would have never fished in even the stealthiest skiff and didn’t spend a god forsaken dime on gas, repairs, ramp fees, or anything else for that matter.

Naturally the first one I bought off of Craigslist without trying it out was just a little too small for my 250lb ‘sique, and my ass was getting and staying wet the whole ride through the scupper holes. No big deal, I put that rig right back on the virtual flea market (Craigslist) and got my money back out of it quick. The bright ass safety yellow sled I ended up with I again found on the interweb of other peoples garbage (Craigslist) and bought off of a nice Scottish guy in Venice. It’s called the Ocean Kayak Prowler “Big Game” with “Big Game” meaning “Fat Guy” but just in a nicer way.

It’s got fishing rod holders and places for your stuff and other crap gadgets that I don’t care to even figure out what they are or what they do. I’m not going to talk about some out dated plastic boat like you can’t just shop for one yourself online, but look for one with big weight capacities. The big boy versions are naturally a little larger and slower, but are more stable, have more storage, and you won’t alienate your fat friends.

I’m primarily a fisherman. I’d much rather fish than any number of activities you could name off. I have been to a few dove shoots when I was a younger fellow, but hunting had never really been on my radar. I’ve wanted to sit in a tree stand and kill a buck. I’ve wanted to shoot a hog. I’ve even wanted to bust a few ducks from a blind. There are two things that have consistently stopped me from doing any of these activities and they would be 1.) Money. Adding hobbies gets real expensive, real quick. 2.) I like to fish too much to devote any amount time to other endeavors.

My good buddy Travis Lowe had been gator hunting the last few years and he always kept me fed with gator tail and had some nice alligator rug mounts to show for his efforts. I really love eating some gator tail and I thought having a rug mount like Travis’ would go good with my home décor. Plus I wanted to see what this hunting thing was all about.

 I applied for the tags in the early summer, if I remember correctly. I didn’t think I would actually be granted tags because they select lottery style these days. Seeing as how I could fall in a bucket of titties and come out sucking my thumb, my naturally pessimistic self never believed that I would actually be one of the select few that would receive tags. I was super fired up when the tags came in the mail.

 I didn’t really know what to expect. I had seen Swamp People and was told hunting gators in Florida didn’t remotely resemble what they do in Louisiana. I had seen some of the cast members on the show bait hooks and shoot gators from a distance. Neither of the aforementioned methods are legal in Florida. You aren’t even allowed to shoot them with a gun, as you have to use a bang stick.

When gator season opens up in Florida, there is about a months’ time in which select groups with tags have a specific week they are allowed to hunt gators. This keeps everyone with tags from convening in specific areas all at once and makes it more manageable for hunters. I got my week from August 15th-21st. I had seven days to fill my two tags. If I didn’t fill either one of them, I would have to wait until the end of September; I believe it was, to try again. Then everyone would have until October 31st to fill their tags.

The first opportunity I got to go gator hunting Travis called his buddy Tim, who he had hunted with in previous years. Travis and I met Tim at The Ocala Boat Club, right off of S.R. 40 in Silver Springs. I applied for tags in Alachua County and Marion County and only got tags for Marion. We had to ride through part of Silver Springs River that is protected from gator hunting. Our destination was the Ocklawaha River.

Tim has an airboat named the IntimiGator. I had never even been on an airboat before. I had heard the noisy bastards more times than I could count while I was fishing. I’ve always been slightly jealous of how they can go just about any and everywhere they want, but I had never got a chance to ride on one. I was actually surprised about the noise levels. When I hear them from afar, it seems like the noise would rip your eardrums in two if you didn’t wear ear protection. Tim didn’t have any ear muffs, so I didn’t wear any. It was surprisingly bearable. It truly wasn’t that bad at all.

Sitting on the bow of the airboat with a harpoon in your hand can be rather exhilarating, especially if you are seeing a good amount of gators. Our first evening gator hunting, we were rather anxious to hit the water, so we had a good two hours before sundown. Any one that has been gator hunting before knows it’s much easier spotting the gators when its dark outside and you are shining the spotlight to see their eyes. We strolled around for some time, seeing very few gators in the daytime. Being my first time gator hunting, I had my adrenaline flowing the whole time I was sitting up front with the harpoon.

 I was definitely a little harpoon happy at first. I didn’t throw the harpoon at all, because Tim was telling me what I should and shouldn’t aim for and nothing big enough was coming around, but boy I was wound up tight. Every time we got close to some eyes I was rearing to go. One thing you figure out really quickly is that smaller gators aint afraid of shit. You can roll right up on them and they just look at you like “what’s up, Chief?” Another thing you figure out is that those big gators are a whole lot smarter than folks give them credit for. It wasn’t very often at all, a gator of any size would allow us to get within harpoons throw of them.

Maybe an hour after dark, we finally rolled up on a gator that was a decent size and didn’t descend underwater. In fact, as we approached him, he rolled up closer to the bank instead of submerging. Bad move by him. I kind of went blank for a few seconds. I don’t really remember throwing the harpoon, but I do remember holding onto the rope the gator was attached to. Unfortunately, the boat rolled over the harpoon after I stuck the gator, which caused the pole to break.

This meant we lost the driver, which held the push pin and the dart. These are integral parts of the harpoon. Basically you don’t have a harpoon without that part. All you have is a broken pole with a hole and a rope through it. Kind of sounds like a  sad, strange country song.

I held onto the gator, while Tim and Travis pleaded with me not to horse him too much, reminding me that if I got too rough with him, the dart might pull out of his hide. I made sure I was firm but gentle with him for our first time and got him close enough to the boat for Travis to bang stick him (innuendo intended). I was pretty damn excited at this point, even though the gator wasn’t as big as I would have liked him to be. We pulled him into the boat and Tim reminded me that I needed to get my knife out to make a hole in his tail to allow the tag to be placed. This was my first time going gator hunting and my first time throwing the harpoon at something alive, so I wasn’t too terribly upset that we had to head back to the dock, as we didn’t have the proper equipment to continue to attempt to fill my remaining tag.

 We got the gator out of the boat and commenced to measure him and take a few shoddy pictures with my cell phone. I was surprised when he measured 6’4. He wasn’t exactly intimidating by any means, but he just didn’t look that big in the boat. I thought he was only around 5 feet long at most. I guess it’s difficult to take into account how long their tail is at night while it’s laying at the bottom of the boat.

We called it a night after that. Travis and I still had to take the gator home and clean him, so we knew we were in for a late night. We took my truck to meet Tim in Silver Springs so we obviously had to take my truck back to Gainesville. The only problem was that I haven’t had a tail gate on the back of my truck in about 4 years. It wasn’t really that big a deal, because we weren’t doing anything illegal. I was just worried about some yahoo not knowing what the hell was going on and calling the law on me anyways. They would have seen the papers and what not, I just didn’t want to deal with getting pulled over. Luckily that didn’t happen.

 What did happen was that Travis and I rolled back through Gainesville, on 441/13th St., at 11:30 p.m. on the first day of class for The University of Florida fall semester. I’ve never had so many people pay attention to me riding down the street. A car full of broads sped up to where they could talk to us and asked a litany of questions. Almost as many questions as they had girls piled up in their parents four door sedan.

• Is that gator real? (Yes)
• Is it alive? (I hope not)
• Can I touch it? (Depends on what you’re talking about)
• Are you gonna eat him? (Damn right)
• Can we have him? (Absolutely not)
• Giggles, giggles, giggles

We probably had two more cars ask us if the gator was real, but the other two vehicles were dudes and not quite as retarded silly as the girls were.

When we got to Travis’, the real work began. Let me tell you something, cleaning a gator kind of sucks. If you are one of those people who enjoy skinning bucks and cleaning a cooler full of fish, it’s probably not too bad for you. I don’t mind cleaning fish myself, but this is a whole nother ball of wax entirely. First, let me preface the cleaning part of this little story with the fact that one of the giggly girls in the sedan’s question about if the gator was alive or not had a lot of foreshadowing qualities to it. Travis said that it was just the gators nerves acting up, but as soon as I had the gator on Travis’ back patio and attempted to wash him down with bleach, that f****r went to standing up and walking away. Nerves or not, that b#st*rd had another bullet coming to him. I wasn’t about to skin a gator semi alive. Two more shots to the back of the skull calmed him down a bit and we were off to the races.

 We were trying to save the hide, so that we could use it for something cool. That my friends, takes patience, which is something the good Lord shorted me on. I had to work the next day and was pretty tired, so after I punctured the hide a few too many times, I was mostly just worried about harvesting the tail, jowls and leg meat. If we wouldn’t have shot the gator with a .22 a few more times when we got home, I would never had believed that we weren’t skinning him alive, on account of their nerves shooting off when your are cleaning them. That damn tail was quite the bear to hold down and keep still enough to clean it. By the time we got done it was 1:30 a.m. I was tired, smelled like bleach, blood and carcass. Travis kept the head for me so that he could bury it to allow the skin to get eaten off and I could eventually have the skull. I still don’t have that skull. What’s up Travis? You gonna bury that damn thing for me or what? I bet your wife is loving that gator head just posted up in your freezer.

 We couldn’t make it out again during the first week, due to scheduling conflicts. We had to wait until it was open for everyone before we tried to bag another gator. Tim called Travis when he came back into town from a work trip and we set up another hunt. This time we were going to meet him at his house and ride over to Moss Bluff, which is a part of the Ocklawaha River. The only problem was that Tim had worked on his airboat at a friend’s house, so we had to drive over, hook the trailer up and get Tim’s boat on the trailer. This was not what I was expecting at all. Tim had his airboat launched, in what I can only describe as a glorified ditch. How he got that f*ck*r in this “ditch”, I haven’t the foggiest. How we were gonna get it OUT was even more perplexing. There was a 4-5 foot bank, which was rather steep and wouldn’t allow me to drop the trailer down into the “ditch”. I might have been able to get the trailer down there to load the boat, but there is absolutely no way my two wheel drive truck would have pulled it out. I was sure that this was a lost cause, but Tim had other ideas.

 Tim got me to back the trailer to where the tires were barely over the ledge of the bank. He then tied a rope from the airboat to the trailer and had me put the truck in a low gear and pull it out slowly. Unfortunately, I completely ripped Tim’s buddy’s lawn up. The ol’ Silverado didn’t want to partake in this charade. I thought we were pissing in the wind when Tim wanted to give it one more shot. This time he was gonna throttle the engine of the airboat to give my truck some much needed help. Sure enough, the airboat crested the bank and slid right over onto the lawn. The next trick was gonna be to get the boat from the lawn to the trailer. It was getting dark at this point and the mosquitoes were hungry and big enough to stand flat footed and f#** a turkey. Somehow I managed to back the trailer up slowly underneath the boat while Travis and Tim lifted the front of the boat to allow me to slide in. Then, Tim throttled the engine two good times and she was on the trailer, albeit a hair cockeyed. We heaved and hoed a little and got her straightened out and we were finally off to Moss Bluff. Man I wish I had someone to film that little adventure.

We finally got to Moss Bluff and launched the boat. On the ride over, I talked to Tim about possibly doing some taxidermy work on the next gator I killed. Partially because I didn’t want to have to clean a gator until 2:30 am on a weeknight again and partially because I knew my skinning skills left much to be desired. He agreed that if I were to get another one, he’d take it home and work his magic on it. It was rough going at Moss Bluff. Lots of eyes shining, lots of little gators. I was trying to be a little more selective on this trip. I only had one more tag and I didn’t want to bust another one less than 7 feet. We hunted hard for a few hours. There were some questionably sized gators that I came real close to sticking, but just couldn’t pull the proverbial trigger.

 I wanted a he-coon, a stud, a beast, a got damn bull gator. They weren’t wanting to play this particular evening. All the small gators, as I previously mentioned, kind of just let you roll up on them, but the big ones get the hell out of dodge before the airboat can get within striking distance.

 At one point, we rolled up on a little juke joint out in the middle of nowhere. Tim had some of his taxidermied gators hung up on the wall at this establishment and wanted to show me and Travis some of his work. Boy, that’s not all he showed us. I never got the name of this establishment, as that may suggest I would ever want to come back. It wasn’t all that bad I reckon. You could smoke inside and they served cold beers, but the clientele looked between the ages of 16-75 years of age and even the 16 year olds looked like they’d been rode hard and put up wet. Brief would be the best description of the time spend in the place.

 We still didn’t have a gator or even really have a chance at one. We were back at the basin of Moss Bluff when Tim spotted what looked to be a decent sized gator. He was a little braver than his friends, family and neighbors and stayed above the water line a bit too long. Tim said stick him, so that’s just what I did. I wasn’t sure I got him originally because he was under a gang of lily pads, but he began his thrashing and left us no doubt. I was having a hard time getting him up due to the lily pads and Travis couldn’t get a visual on him to bang stick him.

Travis told me to hold on the rope and remove the lily pads. I laughed at him. I wasn’t about to lose a hand for any gator. Eventually his swam himself and the boat out of the lily pads and Travis got a bang shot on him. He was smaller than the first gator.

I was bummed out about it originally. It’s just really hard to ride around all evening and not stick a gator. I had plenty of time left in the season to be patient and attempt to get a bigger one, but my impatience got the best of me, as usual. He ended up being 2 inches shorter than my first one, measuring in at 6’2. But he was quite a bit lighter than the first gator too.

Tim took him home and harvested the meat for me and gave me a killer deal on a rug mount. About a month later I had a rug mounted gator with felt backing for $300. Going rate for most taxidermists is around $100 a foot. I made out like a bandit.

It truly was an interesting experience. I would suggest to anyone with a boat or access to a boat to apply for tags next year. I will definitely put all my chips into getting tags in Alachua County. Driving to Marion County can really put a dent in a wallet as meager as mine. We actually went about 4 other times before I got the second gator. Twice in the Ocklawaha and another two times at Moss Bluff. I didn’t feel obliged to include those trips in the story, as we didn’t even get a chance at hitting a gator and this story is long winded enough.

I knew B.J. and Frenchy wouldn’t want to waste the whole morning doing nothing, but I convinced them that it would be a waste of our time getting there so shortly after dead low tide.  We left from B.J.’s residence around 10:45 and made the slow trek over, stopping at Hitchcock’s Foodway, the gas station and finally the bait store.  The weather forecast called for 30% chance of rain with scattered thunderstorms in the afternoon and about a 10 knot wind.

When we arrived, the water was still low.  I had to rooster tail it to get out of the basin.  We probably should have fished around some of the islands for trout for a while because there was just not enough water to fish when we first got over to Corrigan’s.  We were fishing in water that was about 1.5 feet deep and we weren’t tearing them up by any means.  I caught a stingray to start us off and then remained cold for some time after.  We were having a hard time maneuvering due to the lack of water.  Frenchy out of nowhere caught a short sheepshead which he decided to have a little fun with.

B.J. was really getting on my case.  We had stopped at about 2 or 3 spots with only my stingray to show for it and not much in the way of bites, either.  He kept saying that he was going to stop picking up my phone calls in case I wanted to take him fishing.  He was also making jokes about jumping overboard and swimming to the only other boat in swimming distance, where he was sure they would be catching fish.  As soon as he stopped giving me a hard time long enough to fish, he was in business.

The spot I wanted to stop and fish was unreachable at the time, so we anchored up parallel to a bar about a football field away, waiting for the tide.  B.J. was giving me a rash of s#!t  for not putting them on any fish, when we see about a 4-5 foot bonnet head shark cruising around right in front of us.  I jokingly tossed some cut bait his way out of sheer boredom but didn’t get him to take it.  Not 30 seconds after that B.J.’s line just takes off.  It swims directly for the oyster bar and is hauling some serious ass.  Frenchy and I both remarked aloud about how we were sure it was that shark we just saw on the top of the water.  Even B.J. thought it was a shark.  You could tell because he was being super nonchalant, Mr. Cool Guy without a care in the world.  The fish had originally taken off toward the south, ran almost on top of the oyster bar and did an about face north.  If he would have know what it was at the time, I doubt he would have been hot dogging it like he was.  Frenchy comments on the fact that we haven’t seen a fin and to not be so sure it’s a shark.  I got the net out and B.J. gets it close enough to the boat for me to see that it’s a huge snook.  27 inches to be exact.

We don’t normally catch snook in Cedar Key.  I know people do, but I’ve only been on the boat once when another was landed by my dad, and it was all of 12 inches.  We had no idea what the rules and regulations were on snook in Cedar Key.  We’ve never really had to worry about it before.  Do you need a stamp?  What’s the slot?  Is it even legal to keep them this year?  Too many unanswered questions.  I’ve heard how tasty snook is to eat and really wanted to try some.  What we did find on Frenchy’s law stick was that even when you can keep snook, stamp or not, they have to be 28 inches to keep.  That made a tough decision a little easier.  But it’s never easy to let a big, beautiful fish like that go.  At least if you really enjoy eating fish like B.J., Frenchy and I, do.

B.J.’s luck hadn’t run out at this particular hole yet however.  I hooked into something big and immediately hoped that we had hit a snook hole, but I caught that bonnet head that been showing off for us previously.  As soon as I got the shark unhooked, B.J. hooks into a monster.  This one wasn’t swimming nearly as fast as the Snook did previously, but he was making strong, hard runs.  Frenchy reached over and netted B.J.’s 30 inch redfish for him after about a 5 minute fight.  We could tell he was gonna be real close to being too big, but we all crossed our fingers as we measured him.  Even without pinching the tail, he was too big.  We joked about busting the scissors out and shortening him up a bit, but they were just jokes.  Another tough catch and release for B.J., but a nice fight and catch.

Next up was Mr. French.  At the same spot he pulls in a redfish that’s a hair under 20 inches.  So, we have three really nice fish caught, but only one to show for it.  After that hole, we moved to where I previously wanted to go, but couldn’t get there because of the tide.

 That ended up being a total flop. Nobody got a bite there.  I guess that just shows you that your “spots” aren’t always the best place to fish.  Sometimes it’s better to branch out and find a new “spot”.  After that I decided we had enough water to make our way into a creek that I am fairly familiar with.  I guess I misjudged how much water we had because we came to an impasse which led to the decision to just anchor down and fish.  We were on top of a really nice oyster bar (which caused the impasse) that was only slightly submerged.  It had a faint cut where water was rushing through, so I decided to test my luck there.  In about 20 minutes, I had 2 slot redfish in the boat, measuring 19 inches each.  They weren’t big, but they put me on the board.

It started getting late in the day and we could see a huge storm (that they forecasted for the afternoon) northeast of us.  The barometric pressure dropped and we were getting those really cold (but awesome feeling) gusts of wind.  We were all discussing whether we should hoist the anchor and haul ass when I got a bite.  I originally thought it was a redfish for sure, because of how it was fighting, but when it got closer, I could tell it was a nice, fat speckled trout.  B.J. tried to knock it off the line while he was netting it for me, but we finally got her in the boat.

After that we promptly picked up anchor and headed to the hill.  Frenchy and B.J. watched the storm roll in where we were just fishing.  We loaded the boat up as quickly as possible, to avoid the impending downpour.  I was the only one clear of mind, so I was elected to drive home.  We decided to stop at the Rocky Hammock Rod and Gun Club on the way home.  This was a great idea.  We not only got to clean our fish, but we also got to shoot the s#!t with Big Rodney, Mr. Rucker and Tom.  They fed us with beers, bar b-q sandwiches and some awesome chicken and rice.  I had at least four bowls.  I also need to apologize to whoever left their Little Debbie Swiss Rolls lying around in plain sight.  I had my way with them and while I’m sorry, I’m not sorry.  You should know better.

All in all, it was an awesome day that ended really late.  Me and Frenchy both brought home fish, while B.J., as Frenchy pointed out, couldn’t hit the slot.  We got home after midnight and I was too tired to clean the boat or take it home.  I told B.J. that I would pick it up Sunday, if he didn’t mind.  The next day, B.J. was nice enough to not only clean the boat, the coolers and flush out the motor, but he also took it to my in-laws house where I keep it.  That guy has a free trip on me next time.  I also want to thank Frenchy for the gourmet sandwiches he made on the boat.  Most people bring along some variation of a ham and/or turkey sandwich.  Very few people have Chef Jon Boy French whip up a ham, turkey, lettuce, tomato, onions (diced of course, with a rusty filet knife), mayo, mustard and (the kicker) balsamic vinegar on a deli bun.  I wasn’t sold until I took a bite.  Bon appetite mother f*****s.

 As I had heard from several folks, the water was much clearer than any I had encountered further North. We hit some grass fats early and right off the bat I hooked into a nice trout using a Zara Spook-mullet color top-water plug. This fish turned out to be a nice 23” trout. I had not seen one of this size in a while. It was great to have some top-water action. We floated across these flats and caught several short trout and a couple just legal. We were using a variation of baits including top-water plugs, gulp under a popping cork, DOA terror Eyes jigs, and jerk baits. I must say Jason…the other Jason was catching the most fish at this time and throughout the day. It was confusing for Capitan Allan to keep us straight since not only was he fishing with two of us named Jason but we also have the same last initial…S. So I thought it was real funny when he just started referring to Jason as “dumbass”, until I realized after a few minutes he was talking to me.

Once the trout bite began to slow a little we moved in around some oyster bars looking for reds. Jason managed to get a real nice slot red fairly quick so we assumed it was on. Well not really. That turned out to be the only red we landed. We did lose a couple though. At this point after seeing schools of bait everywhere I decided to hop out on the bars and try my hand with the cast net to get some cut bait for later. Well that was a pitiful sight. My old cat net was a mess and no matter what I did it resembled a matted pile of crap every time I threw it. Let’s just say the whole process can be summed up in two words-monkey and football.

We got back out in the grass close to Seahorse key and hit a few more trout and played around with a couple of flounder that we did not manage to get in the boat. At one point I was standing in the back of the boat getting ready to cast at the exact time the “Captain” set one of his rods down, you guessed it, as I casted, I ripped the rod right out of his hands and right into the water. Instantly I knew that I would have to do my best David Hasselhoff and with the magic words “I got this”, I dove in and managed to swim down and get the rod. It was awesome…at least in my mind. When I got back in the boat I felt like I had saved the day for my good buddy. The only problem was the fact that not 15 minutes before, I had taken a great picture of Jason (not dumbass), with his redfish and then proceeded to put my camera right in my pocket. Needless to say my camera now has some real issues. Oh well, all in all it was a great day.

On our way back to the channel we were easing through the grass flats and the other Jason noticed something flopping around behind Capitan Allan. Now I have heard of mullet, mackerel and the likes jumping in a boat accidentally before, but this friends was a freaking flounder! And yes it was legal, and did not realize that it had just committed suicide. We finished up a great day by heading over to the Pickled Pelican for some grub and a few Red Stripes.