Beavertail Sandwich

The sun was low on the horizon as we sliced down the Upper Caloosahatchee Waterway in my 17-foot Beavertail Skiff. When we came around a bend facing due west, the reflection of the sunbeam off the water looked like a barrel of fire. I lined my eye up with the bright orange sight at the end. Barren and pastoral, mangrove shores on both sides, silver water, still in the near dusk hour. No one said a word. The bow hopped, bouncing wind off the slick water, popping my ears. The four of us focused like a team of Tier One Special Forces Operators.

That may be stretching it a bit, and I’m not trying to steal any valor. However, we did have two gator tags to fill, which qualifies as a Special Operation - with a dangerous and formidable opponent. We were a team; everyone had a position.

When the sun had set, and darkness fell, we trolled the banks, scanning with powerful headlamps and flashlights, searching for pairs of eyes – red eyes. Coop and I stood on the bow, slapping at mosquitoes; me on the trolling motor holding a light, and Coop holding a stout grouper rod with a 12/0 treble hook and a two-ounce lead weight.

“Arrigader, one o’clock,” I said, taking a knee. Operating the trolling motor in my left hand, I held the flashlight steady on the red dots with my right. Coop fired a cast over my head like a catcher throwing to second base, but beyond, launching the grappling system well beyond the alligator. 

“What did you say?” Bill Murray asked with a laugh. We call Coop’s dad Bill Murray due to the slight resemblance. I can kind of see it, but mostly it’s just fun to call him that. Although, one such as I must be careful, as this Bill Murray is a former professional hockey player who keeps himself in shape. As such, he could pound me into the ground like a two-pound sledgehammer on a stake. He’s kind of like a coach, but a cool one. Not the one that walked the sidelines with a chinstrap, just looking for a reason to wrap someone on the helmet with the button end …BING!

“That’s how they say alligator over there in the backwoods of the Mississippi River Delta,” Coop said to his dad as he reeled like a madman until the treble hook was just beyond the prehistoric beast.

“Yeah,” I made a half turn to Bill Murray and repeated, “Arrigader.” He just shook his head. Coop pulled the tackle into the gator with a fast-sweeping motion of the rod, to which it took offense. The hook never hit home, and the angry gator sulked away.

We continued the hunt as I poured sweat, moving from cove to cove, canal to canal, looking for The Big One, humidity so thick you could cut it with a hatchet.

Stopping in the middle of a large reservoir off the river packed with lily pads, Coop brought out the blue tooth speaker and synced it with his phone. Through the speaker came a series of chirping croaks, the sound made by juvenile alligators; the equivalent to a hail call at a flock of mallards high in a bluebird sky, eyeballing a decoy spread in a flooded rice field. It didn’t take long before Ashley spotted a set of eyes the size of Red Delicious apples making way towards us.

I ducked down and held my light on the set of eyes. Coop catapulted the medieval-looking contraption well beyond the alligator. Reelreelreelreel… he closed the distance, but the gator darted forward. I followed him with the light. Coop adjusted coarse with the rod until the egg sinker was directly behind him. Then, wham! Coop set the hook, and we began to have ourselves a rodeo.

The gator took off towards the river. Big … real big…we guessed about twelve feet. I chased it out of the lake and into the main river, Coop keeping steady pressure, gaining line as he could. A long and arduous battle ensued, and Coop nearly had the gator whipped. I was now using the trolling motor in closer quarters, making strategic moves in tandem with the direction of the fight. Ashely, Coop’s girlfriend, an accomplished outdoorswoman in her own right, held the light while I kept us in position. It turns out that professional hockey players from Canada have Cowboy skills because Bill Murray lassoed the gator like a team roper.

Then, in an instant, the trolling motor stopped. “What happened!” hollered Coop, changing direction, tugging the giant head in the opposite direction, away from the bank.

I lifted the trolling motor out of the water and turned the handle. The prop spun but barely. “Snapped cotter pin!” I yelled back. The gator had pulled us dangerously close to a steep bank, jagged with riprap.

By the time I ran down the gunnel and fired the engine, the gator had twisted tight to the boat and was having a sandwich of the port bow. I can still hear the teeth grinding the fiberglass, Crunch, Crunch, Crunch … Just like that, repeatedly. “Hey, Man!” I shouted as if someone sprayed sunscreen all over my cushions. I got the motor going and backed us away from the bank. Bill Murray held fast, but the gator swung its head 180 degrees to the other side and chomped at it. “Hey! You’re running up a bill here, man!” 

Big Boy got caught in the chewed-up rub rail alongside the boat, getting the rope in a bind, pulling the hook free. The Leviathan swam away free to do as they do – survive.

My battle injured Beavertail brought us back to the boat ramp, beaten but breathing, innards displayed and all. Fortunately, Coop and Bill Murray are competent at fiberglass work.

All in the name of adventure. If you’re going to be a bear, be a grizzly.