Encountering gators quite common in the Lowcountry

Whenever I write my column, I try my best to keep things upbeat. But because of the events in Orlando this past week, I am going to stray away from my usual style because inwardly I feel a real need to find some semblance of closure so I can get back to my usual happy self.

I won’t spend much time on the horrific nightclub massacre because I don’t want to open that barrel of worms. All I’ll say is I have been a hunter my entire adult life and have handled just about every type of weapon. However, if it helped curb these nightmare scenarios that have become the norm, I would gladly stick to my old beat-up shotguns if it’s decided military assault-style weapons should be left to the military for whom they were initially designed.

What happened to that toddler being taken by a gator is really what I want to talk about. Around here, gators are a dime a dozen, and with so many new to the Lowcountry, hopefully I can provide some education about these reptiles I have been up close and personal with for 60-plus years.

When I was growing up here in a time when gators outnumbered people, I constantly had encounters with bad-tempered gators. Cutting my angling teeth while fishing in brackish lagoons, I quickly learned that gators love fish more than I do. I can’t tell you how many times I have been chased by gators hell-bent on taking my catch.

This I do know: The mid-sized gators, ranging from 5 to 8 feet long, are the most aggressive. They’re fast and can lunge completely out of the water. My advice to newcomers that fish in lagoons or wander along the edge looking for golf balls is to steer clear and watch for anything that looks like a log half-submerged under the stringy, green grass common in most local lagoons.

When I was around 9 years old, I got pretty good at calling a gator. I would wait until the female gators gave birth and would try to catch her babies. Armed with an old crab net, I would go to the opposite side of the lagoon from where the mom was, let out a few distress calls and when she would steam over to check me out, I would run back over to where she left her babies and try to catch them with that long handled crab net before she caught me.

If that wasn’t enough, I would then take a fish stringer, lasso it around the baby gator’s neck and stick the metal end into the ground. The baby would run in circles hollering like crazy and every gator within a mile would come running.

It was an interesting childhood.

I’ve also had some sporty encounters with gators, including one that happened not long ago. An old friend of mine came into town from Ohio and all he wanted to do was catch a redfish. I wasn’t feeling all that ambitious, so I took the easy route. I suggested we hit a couple of my favorite lagoons and try for monster redfish — some are so big they look almost prehistoric. So, with a few fresh mullet in hand, we went fishing.

Lagoon fishing is pretty much a waiting game. Using half of a very large mullet, I pitched the bait out as far as I could, set the reel in free spool, and we sat down and caught up on our respective lives. I wasn’t paying a great deal of attention to the rod until out of the corner of my eye I saw the rod tip bouncing like crazy as a giant redfish shot across the lagoon.

By the time I got my buddy to hook the fish, it had taken out at least one hundred yards of line and when he finally did hook it, it was like he was hooked into a freight train. The only thing that was going to stop that bruiser was the lagoon’s far shoreline.

Not ten feet from where the redfish stopped, though, was a big ole alligator, lying on the bank and basking in the sun. The redfish finally came to the surface, made a big splash, and suddenly that lazy gator wasn’t lazy anymore.

Now this wasn’t my first rodeo when it comes to gators and fishing, but my friend was clearly a nervous wreck.

That gator wanted my friend’s redfish badly. My friend was freaking out because the gator was not 3 feet from us, hissing and growling. Every time it seemed my friend was about to land the redfish, the gator went for it.

I told my friend to put the reel in free spool so the fish could swim away. This back and forth battle went on for nearly 20 minutes before I was able to grab the redfish and haul boogie up the bank with the gator right on my heels. That redfish was 44 inches long, and when I went to release it, that gator was so mad he stuck his head all the way out of the water and gave one last hiss.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures of my friend and his fish because he was already back in the car. I reckon they don’t have gators in Ohio.

This story was originally published June 18, 2016 at 4:04 PM with the headline "Encountering gators quite common in the Lowcountry."