Gator Encounter

To wade fish the Ross Barnett reservoir you have to have a certain common sense about alligators, or, possibly, a lack of it. When it comes to gators and the Rez, like OMGItsWicks says, “if the water is wet, there’s probably a gator in it”. The reservoir authorities maintain that there has never been a gator attack at the Rez. Well just because nobody’s been hurt doesn’t mean there hasn’t been “incidents”.

I always think about new roads and how the city first puts up a stop sign at an intersection and only later, after some threshold of traffic accidents has occurred do they put up a light. Unfortunately someone may have been injured or killed before they put up a light. That’s usually when the “powers that be” decide to act. Well, it’s getting that way with gators. At some point there is going to have to be more than just removal after somebody complains. As many gators as we’re seeing, somebody is going to get hurt. You know, overzealous fly fishers aren’t the only people in the water at the Rez.

So, when our fly fishing club members wade to fly fish, we keep an eye out for gators. The first rule of gator measurement is checking out the distance between his nostrils and the center between his eyes because it is said that the number in inches is equivalent to the gator’s length in feet.

But of course once you determine his length, it’s up to you to decide how big a gator you will fish with. Twelve foot gator, Hell no. A ten footer, still no. How about an eight footer, well that used to be my acceptable size but there have some serious attacks by eight foot gators in the news this year so, no. So what is the acceptable gator size?

I shared my fishing hole with the reservoir gator above, even though I wouldn’t call his size “acceptable”, but I kept an eye on him and stayed shallow.

I prefer to not share my fishing hole with any gators at all, but sometimes you don’t have a choice. Lately its been a host of small gators, two to three feet. I have been giving them no consideration, in fact I play with them a little, slapping my fly in front of them to tease them. Yes, those little gators are just cute. Until yesterday…

Yesterday I was wading an area on the Rez and doing pretty good, catching some decent sized bream and dropping them into my floating wire basket. We’ve been in a drought around here lately and the water was down. Normally the water at the location would have been about waist high, but yesterday it did not quite make it to my waist.

There were a couple of small gators I had seen around. I didn’t pay much attention except to swat at one that was getting a little too close.

As it started to get dark, I had a good number of fish in my basket and I heard a “tink” sound. I have had run-ins with snakes that have gotten into my basket and also turtles that swim up to it and bite on the wire. The sound made me think “snake” and the unpleasant memory of getting that brown water snake out of my fish basket was on my mind when I reached for the handle and began to lift the basket. But when I started to lift the basket I felt an unusual resistance, so I pulled harder. When I did, the water around the basket, and me, exploded and something big swirled by my leg.

At first I was just shocked and just stood there holding the basket, but then the gator head came up by the basket. I couldn’t see his length but judging by his head (rule #1) I think he was about three feet long. I let my reel and handle slide down in my hand and I poked at him with it. Well, he didn’t like that and threw his jaws open and started snapping at me. I moved backwards but the gator stayed with the basket, snapping and hissing at me. He made it pretty clear he was ready to fight for that basket of fish.

Obviously relieved that I didn’t have some man-eater after me, I started remembering back when I took the alligator hunter course and the MDWFP instructor talked about the bacteria in their mouth. Apparently if you get bit, even a scratch, you need to go get medical attention, antibiotics and a good cleaning of the wound because that bacteria is bad news. So with that in mind I began began backing out of the water. It’s been said that “discretion is the better part of valor” and I am a firm believer.

I wish I had a video of this encounter, OMGitsWicks might have given it a “what’s going on out here”, but it wouldn’t have been Florida doing Florida things, it would have been Mississippi doing Mississippi things.