Getting down to Florida is apparently next to impossible the week of Christmas, which was previously unknown to the wife and I. Nevertheless, after 20 hours of travel time we set up camp and the next day I had a hunt booked.
I used Mid-Florida Outfitters and had a great time. The guide was accommodating enough to allow my 7 year old to accompany the gator hunt.
We hunted a private rancher's cattle land for the gator. He's got tens of thousands of acres that are criss-crossed with drainage canals, which are prime habitat for all sorts of gators. We were on an ATV just crawling along the banks of the canals, looking for sunning Alligators. After having seen at least 4 to 5 that slipped in the canals before we could set up a shot, we approached one from the far side. He saw us and slipped in to the canal, but fortunately we crossed the canal farther away and saw him floating on the water. After approaching I was left with a 50 yard shot. The 6.5 grendel basically blasted half of his skull in pieces. Surprisingly the animals are incredibly tough. It took two more shots with a 22 mag to the head to finish him.
The rest of the afternoon we spent in a blind waiting for hogs. As sometimes happens, the animals weren't moving until just before dark. Because I didn't have the next day to hunt the guide worked with me and a thermal scope to find movement in some bush. Another 50 yard shot with the 6.5 grendel and the hog was down. It was a good sized sow.
All in all, I wound up with about 15 points of gator tail, 15 points of ground pork sausage, two small pork loins, and two shoulders. The pork is much leaner than the commercially available farm pork, but so far we've found to meat to be a much better quality than store bought stuff (we haven't actually eaten any of it, we're just going by smell/feel of the meat as we've been packing).
The only negative comment I'd have to make about the experience was the guide didn't really process the meat. I knew that going in to it, but bringing a 3 foot long gator tail back to camp and a skinned/boned/quartered hog was a hard sell to my wife. But having processed it at home we are both happy for the meat.
the ground sausage
I used Mid-Florida Outfitters and had a great time. The guide was accommodating enough to allow my 7 year old to accompany the gator hunt.
We hunted a private rancher's cattle land for the gator. He's got tens of thousands of acres that are criss-crossed with drainage canals, which are prime habitat for all sorts of gators. We were on an ATV just crawling along the banks of the canals, looking for sunning Alligators. After having seen at least 4 to 5 that slipped in the canals before we could set up a shot, we approached one from the far side. He saw us and slipped in to the canal, but fortunately we crossed the canal farther away and saw him floating on the water. After approaching I was left with a 50 yard shot. The 6.5 grendel basically blasted half of his skull in pieces. Surprisingly the animals are incredibly tough. It took two more shots with a 22 mag to the head to finish him.
The rest of the afternoon we spent in a blind waiting for hogs. As sometimes happens, the animals weren't moving until just before dark. Because I didn't have the next day to hunt the guide worked with me and a thermal scope to find movement in some bush. Another 50 yard shot with the 6.5 grendel and the hog was down. It was a good sized sow.
All in all, I wound up with about 15 points of gator tail, 15 points of ground pork sausage, two small pork loins, and two shoulders. The pork is much leaner than the commercially available farm pork, but so far we've found to meat to be a much better quality than store bought stuff (we haven't actually eaten any of it, we're just going by smell/feel of the meat as we've been packing).
The only negative comment I'd have to make about the experience was the guide didn't really process the meat. I knew that going in to it, but bringing a 3 foot long gator tail back to camp and a skinned/boned/quartered hog was a hard sell to my wife. But having processed it at home we are both happy for the meat.
the ground sausage
