Kill It. Cook It. Craft It: The Gator Hunt That Gives Back Everything
by Kenzie Fitzpatrick
I’ve hunted many different types of animals over the years, such as ducks, whitetail deer, hogs, coyotes, raccoons, prairie dogs, and turkeys, but there is one type of wild animal that has topped the rest. That animal would be an alligator. I’ve made it my “thing” now to go down to Venice, Louisiana, annually and bring a different friend group each time to hunt. Each trip has left me with an adrenaline rush I can’t recreate, making me look forward to the next one immediately. The guide service I have used for each hunt and will use until the day I die is Fin Twisters, owned by Walter Heathcock. His private property in the swamps of Louisiana is filled with monster alligators, hogs, and tons of different species of fish. This is the man to call if you want to experience a once-in-a-lifetime alligator hunt.
Turning Louisiana Gators Into Food, Leather, and Legend
There are several ways to hunt alligators, with the simplest method being the bait-and-hook method. When you book a gator hunt with Fin Twisters, Walter will bait days-old chicken onto giant hooks set on fishing line, which hover slightly above the water. This prevents smaller gators from accessing the bait. The fishing line must be a certain weight and attached to a tree or pole to keep an alligator hooked. Once you come up on a hooked gator, you dispatch it by shooting it in the back of the skull with a gun or bow and arrow. The hard part after that is hauling a dead weight gator onto the boat. Walter has a winch on his boat that makes it much easier to load a heavy gator onto it than to try to lift it up and over.
A less common, but doable, method of hunting alligators is to shoot swimming gators or stationary gators on the shore through their eyes. This requires a precise shot with a rifle, usually from a moving or rocking boat. I have made this shot on two gators before, using a Kopfjäger K800 Carbon Fiber Tripod with a Reaper Grip, and the Recon V2 Inverted tripod with the 65MM Dual Tension Ballhead W/ Area 419 ARCALOCK QD by Two Vets Tripods. Having a stable shooting position is a necessity when shooting from a moving vessel at a quarter-size target.
The coolest way I’ve seen a gator hunted is by casting a line with a three-prong hook into the murky water and hoping you snag a gator. While there has been one exception, you only do this when you have an idea of where an alligator might be under the surface. This’ll happen when a free-swimming alligator ducks under the surface or when you watch an alligator slide off a bank into the water. Usually, these gators sink down waiting for the boat to pass, so they’re not really taking off, but idling nearby. The one exception to this was the time Walter hooked a ghost gator out of what felt like thin air. It was the final day of our booked hunt last fall when we were letting the boat drift around a bend with the engine off. There had been tons of gar fish all day, flipping their tail and creating misleading ripples on the water’s surface. When we came around the bend, there were two super small ripples moving away from a tree with exposed tree roots in the water. I truly think Walter is a gator whisperer, as what happened next gave me goosebumps. He grabbed the fishing rod with the three-prong hook and cast it into the water on a whim. He’d reel in the line and toss the hook a few more times around the boat, feeling for anything moving underneath us. He decided to throw out one more cast, and on that final attempt, he started fighting something thrashing under the water. By some miracle, Walter hooked an alligator through its claw while it spun in circles, tangling itself in the fishing line, which worked in our favor. I was able to easily dispatch it with a shot to the head, and it didn’t go anywhere, thanks to how tangled up it was in the line. I’ll never forget the laughter that emanated from Walter or my friends on the boat as we dragged the ghost gator on board.
Dialed In: My Gator Hunting Setup
Choosing the right gun in the right caliber, with the ideal optic, really depends on how you plan to hunt alligators. Walter keeps a .22 LR pistol and rifle on board to dispatch alligators using the hook-and-bait method. The spot on the skull of an alligator that you need to shoot is extremely small, and a .22LR round held closely will do the job no problem. Higher caliber rifles can do a lot of damage to the skull if you plan to keep it, and can also be dangerous when shooting so close to the side of a boat. If you do use something larger than .22LR, the courteous thing to do is use a suppressed gun. This is the neighborly thing to do, not just for the folks on the boat with you, but also for people within gunshot range. While Walter owns the land where we hunt, the surrounding property is always busy with fishermen, people duck hunting, and hobbyist boaters.
If you are capable of making a precise shot at a gator’s eye from a range of anywhere between 50-200 yards, you need to come prepared with a rifle chambered in an accurate shooting caliber with a high level magnification scope. I recommend something larger than an LPVO as the size of a gator’s eye is about that of a quarter. I recommend at least a 3-18x magnification level and have used that as well as a 5-25x power scope. Here are my two gun builds I’ve harvested alligators with:
Ammunition Selection:
Ammunition selection is one of the most important decisions you’ll make when it comes to hunting. With both calibers, I rely on Hornady for all my ammunition needs. The 22 Creedmoor 80 gr. ELD‑X Precision Hunter packs a punch and is a load intended for hunting applications. The two loads I switch between for 22 ARC are the 62 gr ELD‑VT V‑Match and 75 gr ELD Match Hornady Black. Both of these loads are super accurate, have consistent velocities, and are precise enough for hunting. I always zero my rifles at 100 yards no matter what scope I’m using. This gives me easy data to remember when changing from one rifle to another.
Memories of a Lifetime
Gator hunting has become one of my favorite hunts I look forward to annually. I highly recommend doing it at least once to experience it for yourself. Seeing a giant alligator in person really makes you feel like dinosaurs still walk this earth. I am looking forward to whatever my next gator hunt trip brings and the memories I’m sure to make with whoever comes along with me next!
