Big Gator

The 14 or 15 foot gator finally floated to the top. He has been underwater for about two weeks. Everyone including the game warden told me that they get under a big tree or dig into the bank of a pond or river and die. When they die, usually another gator will eat him. Last week I smelled a very bad smell coming from the pond, it was a big turtle, then day before yesterday the turtle was gone and the smell was still there. The buzzars were coming and going every ten mintues and yesterday they were about twentu buzzars hanging around the gator. I tried to get very close, but could not. I took some pictures and I will post them, when someone helps me. I never posted pictures on my blog before.  All this meat was a big waste, he was rotten, the color of his skin done turned light beige, instead of black and brown. His skin was very soft and when I tried to pull him out of the water, he started to fall apart. One picture has him laid out straight and he looks to be about 15 feet long, his tail was about 7 feet by itself. Late last night, I pulled some of his body out of the water, so the buzzars could eat on him, they ate all night and left a big rib bone on the bank. Little ones are better and are easy to get on land, these large ones are too damn big and weight over 500 pounds. The first one was about 6 foot and he was easy, got him the same hour he died. His meat was very good and tasty, like a porchop with a little fishy taste, very good. It sells for 8.00 a pound down here. The hide is a story in it's own. If you don't tack it down every inch, the skin will roll up and start to get hard and it will not be good for anything. The best way to tan a hide is wash very good and add alot of salt and get a huge board and tack it every inch around the whole hide. Keep adding the salt and when it is tanned, it will be soft and you can work with it in any way. I have learned alot about these bastards and they are bad ass rascals. This big gator came at me, cause I was trying to catch the baby gators and take them to the DNR, when they started making those crying noises, the gator did a 360 and came out of the water and came right at me, when he got about 3 feet from me, that is when I got him, this is when he sank to the bottom.. I also met a trapper that does this for a living and he has showed me the ropes. Thei gator was a great lesson for me and I will know what and how the next time. I also got me a better camera today and will download my own pictures from now on. The pictures you will see tonight is a throw away camera with 27 pictures on it. And a drug store at Wal Mart put them on a disk for me. I hope I can get it to work. Later tonight sport fans, Cat