“’The time has come,' the Walrus said, ‘To talk of many things: Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax — Of cabbages — and kings…’” — Lewis Carroll, “The Walrus and the Carpenter.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” I exclaimed as Nonc, our guide on this little alligator adventure handed me what I could only surmise was a child-sized life vest from his equally small camouflage bass boat.
“Sorry, it’s the rules,” he said.
“Where’s yours,” I demanded.
“Only guests have to wear them,” he said. Behind him, Calvin, our second guide, was laughing uproariously as Josh and I wiggled into our tiny life vests.
You ever see that movie with Chris Farley where he puts on the tiny, yellow, inflatable life vest while pretending to be an airline steward and then accidentally inflates it and nearly suffocates? Yeah, that was Josh and I — our vests bunched up around our necks like 17th-century ruff collars.
“I can’t even turn my head,” I complained. “I can barely breathe.”
“Yeah, well you look great,” Josh said, his usually catty self, smirking from behind his sunglasses.
“Shut up.”
Josh and I were in Abbeville, Louisiana, taking a bucket list hunting trip for alligators I’d booked a year earlier with the intent of having dad with us for a family adventure. Mom had to stay home and had no interest in boats, alligators or water deeper than a teaspoon. We’d lost dad to COVID shortly after I’d booked the hunt and Josh and I were there in his “honor.”
“Be careful. The boat’s slippery,” Calvin yelled as I attempted to step off into the 12-footer from the docks. Suddenly I found myself spread-eagle over the water, one foot on wood dock the other rapidly making tracks as far from its partner as humanly possible.
“Holy crap,” I yelled almost going into what I imagined had to be alligator-infested waters. I’d worn soft, rubber-soled tennis shoes, thinking they’d be perfect for a slippery, aluminum, boat deck. How wrong I was.
Calvin revved the trolling motor on the boat, pushing the boat closer to the dock as I somehow found the strength to not drop right on overboard. Then came the “sailor’s waddle” as I tried to navigate myself in a rocking boat to a spot picked out for me on a cooler in the dead center of the precarious pirogue (that’s Cajun for “too damned small boat”).
Nonc, a long-time alligator hunter, had a hunt area south of Abbeville in some levies and we were heading out for a half-day of alligator hunting, “Swamp People” style.
It’s pretty much like the show, except that, generally, the alligators don’t throw such a fuss — that’s just done for the cameras by jerking on the line that runs to the large fishing hook tangled up somewhere in the lizard’s mouth or stomach.
Our first line of the morning found a small gator on, about four feet in length. I’m not sure how expensive those massive steel hooks run, but they must go through a whole bunch of them in a season.
Being too small to really keep, Nonc cut the line.
“What about the hook,” I asked.
“Oh, their stomachs are so caustic it’ll be completely dissolved in a month,” he said. “It may bother him for a while, but he’ll be fine in a couple weeks.”
“OK,” I thought, “So not only are they man-eating death machines filled with rows upon rows of flesh-shredding teeth, but they’re nigh on invincible, almost impossible to see in water AND they have acid spit? What did I just sign up for?”
The next two lines were still up from the previous day sets, but the fourth was down and after some digging, Nonc found that it went over the chest-high weeds on the levy over to the other side.
Calvin ran the boat up to the bank and Nonc cautiously inched his way on shore, swinging a long, iron-hooked pole into the weeds ahead of him.
He finally came out on top of the levy, standing about six feet above us and peered over to the far side.
“Wowwee,” he whistled. “Calvin, get the gun. Who’s going to shoot this one? He’s a big one.”
Josh and I exchanged glances.
“You go ahead,” Josh said.
“Oh, thanks a lot,” I replied. “You’re so generous.”
“Hey, I just want to make sure you get a good one. You paid for the hunt,” he responded.
“Uh-huh,” I absently replied as I once again “sailor-waddled” to the end of the boat and stepped off on shore.
“Here,” Calvin said, handing me a .22-magnum revolver. “It’s loaded.”
I bellied my way through the weeds, imagining how many poisonous snakes I’d just stepped over, and reached the top next to Nonc just as my eyes caught site of the 10-foot reptile half submerged on the edge of the bank’s six-foot drop below on the opposite side.
“He can’t make it up here, can he,” I asked Nonc.
“Sure. When you shoot him, he may try to come back over to get to water,” came the reply. “Do you know how to shoot a pistol?”
“Sure.”
“Are you any good? Because it’s a small target,” Nonc asked.
“I’m fair,” I said. “I’m better with a rifle, but I’m decent with a pistol.”
“Well you see that plate on top of his head? Shoot right behind it right between his eyes,” Nonc said.
“OK,” I said, cocking the hammer on the revolver and taking aim.
“Now be sure you hit the right spot. And don’t cut the line,” he almost screamed just as I squeezed off a shot.
BANG! A red spot formed right where Nonc had been indicating. The gator never flinched.
“Good shot. You can shoot a pistol. Give him one more to be safe.”
POP! Another red spot almost touching formed right beside the first.
“Wow. Good shooting. I have clients who come and can’t even hit the water when they come face-to-face with a big one,” Nonc said, taking the revolver and pocketing it.
After a wait of several minutes (just to be sure), we scurried down the levy and tried to pull the big gator up on land, after Nonc poked him in the eye a time or two with the gun barrel just to be sure.
As we stood there hollering over the levy to Calvin to tie off the nylon line from the hook in the gator’s mouth to the boat, suddenly the big son-of-a-gun took a big, ragged sigh.
“Holy crap! He ain’t dead,” I yelled just as Nonc, who’d been standing by the gator’s head tried to jump clear over the levy.
Neither of us were making it over that levy fast enough no matter how high we jumped and so out came the pistol and suddenly four more red spots formed right on top of that gator’s head right alongside the first two — BAM. BAM. BAM. BAM.
Nonc was reloading as fast as he could dig six new rounds from his pocket, no easy task with a side-gate revolver.
As soon as the last fresh round slid into its chamber Nonc turned to look at the big beast, who suddenly blinked and swiveled an eye around to look back. BAM. BAM. BAM. Nonc put three more into the gator, the blasts of the .22 magnum rounds drowned out by the expletives he was simultaneously hurling at that gator like heavy artillery fire.
BAM. BAM. … BAM. Another full salvo spent and Nonc was still lobing obscenities at that gator like a drill sergeant at morning PT. If words could kill, that gator wouldn’t have fit into a matchbox by the time Nonc was done.
“I’ve got to get a bigger gun,” he said to himself, between curses.
“Yeah? And I need some clean underwear,” I said, hurling a few oath-laden artillery shells at Nonc and the gator in turn.
Nonc has a few licenses left for the 2024 season. Look him up at www.noncshuntandfish.com.
Levi Hill is an award-winning journalist, outdoorsman and gunsmith from Jal, N.M. He began shooting at the age of two and writing for press while in high school. He can be reached at hillmanoutdoors@gmail.com.
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