Be smart when sharing water with gators
The alligator had a catfish in his jaws. A nice blue of about 5 pounds by the look of it.
The gator with the stillflapping, silvery black, fork-tailed fish held firmly in its permanently grinning mouth had slowly shoved out of the shallows when I quietly approached the picket of cypress trees lining the swamp slough, fishing rod in hand. It lazily swam across the slough and lumbered onto the shore where it enjoyed a breakfast of fresh catfish.
This was a good sign, and for more than one reason. But there were plenty of them on this blessedly cool, still May morning. They were all around the boat — in the water, on the land and in the air. All it took was to look and listen and pay attention to what was being said.
That the gator, an 8-footer, yielded the water to me was the first good sign. It was not unexpected.
Despite what folks with little or no experience with alligators might think, the reptiles are almost always non-confrontational creatures. Like most truly wild animals, they would rather avoid interactions with humans. And the larger they are, the more prone they are to go out of their way to avoid people.
There are exceptions. And they must be considered. Mothers know best
A mother alligator guarding her nest or hatchlings can be a fearsome, dangerous animal. I have seen them attack boats or vehicles that got too close to a nest. There is a video out there of an angry mother gator ripping the bumper off a truck that got too close to her nest. And I’ve had a mama gator come storming across a slough to try to get in the boat with us after one of her hatchlings had grabbed a fishing lure and shouted a series of “Come save me, Mom!” chirps as we removed the hooks and released the little gator.
Angry mother gators are not a major problem this time of year. Gator mating season is winding down — I heard only a dozen or so “bull” gators bellowing in the swamp while fishing last week — a mere pittance of what could be heard there a month ago when mating season was in full flower and the deep-throated, rumbling roars of males announcing their presence to females and warning off any potential rivals were an almost constant background sound.
Females soon will be building nests — huge piles of vegetation and mud — where they will lay about three dozen eggs. Mom doesn’t actually incubate those eggs. That is accomplished by the heat generated by the deteriorating vegetation in the nest and the Texas summer sun. But she always will be close during the two-month incubation period. And she will be very protective of her nest.
But confrontations are easy for anglers to avoid. Simply stay away from gator nests. Most anglers fishing waters holding alligators never see a gator nest, most of which are constructed in out-of-theway places, invariably in marshy terrain with thick vegetation and not the open water that anglers fish.
The other potential problem gators are young ones or, more often, adult gators that have come to associate anglers with potential easy meals.
For anglers, very young alligators — those less than 2 to 3 feet long — can be maddeningly inquisitive creatures — a behavior that seems driven mostly by hunger but also natural curiosity.
Life is tough for these young gators. Larger gators stake out the best territories where food is most available and are loath to brook competition from the smaller reptiles. Truth is, young gators run a high risk of being eaten if they trespass. Alligators, especially large males, are highly cannibalistic — a behavior that serves a biological function by reducing overcrowding of habitat and encouraging young gators to find unoccupied habitat, expanding the species’ range. This forces young gators into marginal habitat, where food often is in short supply. So they seem perpetually hungry.
To a small alligator, a topwater plug looks like a potential meal. And a thrashing, splashing fish on the end of an angler’s line sounds like a dinner bell. It is not uncommon for small gators to chase (and sometimes grab) lures or swim over to investigate the sounds of fish being fought and landed. Youthful enthusiasm
This can be frustrating for anglers, but seldom dangerous; a two-foot alligator is not a threat. They are, however, tough on topwaters or other terminal tackle and a booger to unhook. They also can be, and usually are, persistent in their pestering. In those cases, an angler’s best course of action is to simply move to another area.
That option certainly applies when confronted by larger gators that have become accustomed to humans and associate people with food. Invariably, these gators have developed this behavior because humans have encouraged it by feeding them — discarding carcasses of cleaned fish or other edible items in the water or purposely tossing food to gators.
These are potentially the most problematic alligators because they have lost their natural wariness of humans and associate them with something to eat. The danger in this is obvious and real. The single documented human fatality in Texas from an alligator attack involved a large reptile that had been fed by humans. There is a good reason Texas law prohibits feeding wild alligators.
Any alligator longer than about four feet that approaches anglers in a boat or on the bank is not to be trusted. This is unnatural behavior, and the only rational option for an angler is to relocate. Move. A human-habituated alligator is unpredictable, and messing with one is like juggling a running chainsaw.
But just because a body of water holds alligators is no reason to avoid it. Anglers and gators can and do share the same water without problems. And, to many of us, having the reptiles around adds to the experience.
Those in the swamp slough I fished last weekend certainly did. And the one I saw with the catfish told me my plan for the morning was a good one. The gator knew where the fish were.
Starting in May, catfish in this slough and the adjacent river and bayous begin their annual spawning season. That means many move into shallow water, where they are drawn to specific habitat.
Catfish gravitate to spawning locations where they have overhead cover — undercut banks, cavities under sunken logs or other structure, washouts under stumps or brush piles other such “holes.” The shoreline of the slough offers an abundance of such habitat.
I used the trolling motor to maneuver the boat parallel to the bank the gator had vacated when I approached. Sunken logs and cypress stumps studded the shallows on the fringe of the swamp slough. Perfect. A symphony of sound
For the next four hours or so, I pitched live shiners suspended 18 inches or so beneath a cork around the base of cypresses, submerged stumps and logs and brush piles. The fish were there. Lots of them. There were catfish, of course. Blues weighing 2 to 5 pounds. But there were bass, too — a couple pushing 2 pounds, and all of them supercharged. A half-dozen keepersize crappie and a dozen more smaller ones. And red-eyed warmouths — goggle-eyes — that would so quickly snatch a minnow and dart into clutter of roots that it became a challenge to see if I could catch them before they got me hung up. Some big bluegills, too. A couple of gaspergou and even an nice long-nose gar that acted like a freshwater tarpon. It was a grand morning.
All the while, the swamp hummed with life. Pairs of wood ducks twisted through fairyland forest of cypress and black gum. Worlds of colorful warblers ornamented the willows and buttonbush, green ash and pignut hickory, resting and refueling on their northward migration. Swallowtailed kites and ospreys soared overhead. The air was thick with that singular aroma of a swamp — a pungent mix of deteriorating vegetation, wet soil, budding leaves and, when the wind was just right, the distinct, musty scent of alligator.
Through the entire wonderful morning, there never was a time when I couldn’t look down the slough and see a half-dozen or more alligators. Some cruising the open water. Some hauled up on muddy banks or stretched out atop logs, sunning in the May morning light. And some, like me, slipping quietly among the shoreline shallows, hoping to find a fish or two.
We treated each other with the respect due fellow fishers. That’s always worked for us.