Camping and Fishing Adventures

Pesky Gator Gets Greedy!

Florida is one of those southern states where you can find alligators in almost all bodies of water.  Most of the time they don’t bother anyone, but there are some exceptions.

My lovely wife Karen and I were camping at one of our favorite RV parks called Meadowlark Shores for her birthday.

We launched our inflatable Sea Eagle boat and headed toward the Caloosahatchee river before heading upriver to a favorite canal several hundred years away.

I started fishing right away in an effort to catch whatever would bite my worm.

We always carry another fishing outfit with us, so I rigged it up to possibly catch some Channel Catfish.

Within a few minutes after casting out with a chunk of calves liver, we noticed a small alligator showed up and stopped some 50’ or so from our bobber, where it just sat there staring, probably hoping for a fish to latch on so it could rush in and get a free meal.

Every time we moved to another fishing area, there was that pesky gator, staring at our bobber.

A few hours later we had reached the end of where we wanted to fish when we again saw the pesky gator staring at our bobber but not doing anything.

I turned away for just a minute to cast my worm with my ultra light outfit, and turned back around to reel in the other pole when I saw that gator swimming very fast toward our bobber.  Before I could reach the heavier pole, that nuisance gator latched onto the bobber and headed back toward the bushes.

Since I didn’t wish to reel a gator toward our little 10’ boat, I grabbed the reel spool and broke the line. 

Unfortunately, the line snapped off and left a hook and a brightly colored orange bobber hanging out of that gators mouth.

The next day we fished the same area and for hours and never saw any sight of that pesky gator.  Karen said it was too embarrassed to show its face!

On our third and final day of fishing, we returned to the same canal, and this time we witnessed that same gator come out of the bushes, and cruised right past another bobber I was using. 

It just kept swimming up the canal until it was out of sight.  So, by the time we had reached the area where we would turn around and return to the main river, we actually saw that same pesky gator sunning itself on someone’s lawn.

We’re guessing it had learned its lesson about trying to steal a fisherman’s gear.