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GGreatOne234
Stranger
Registered: 12/23/99
Posts: 8,946
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Hunting in Alligator Country
#7667607 - 11/22/07 05:31 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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Anybody have good alligator stories?
One season I had a heady stash of potent blotter, so I would pop a hit in the morning and head to the fields to pick all day long. One of those days I went to a cow pasture in Manatee County Florida, a place I considered the field of dreams. Very stealthy and secluded and unknown to any other shroomers, the perfect place to go an pick all day in the daytime. So I was doing pretty good, had 2-3 pounds of Cubes in my bags, and then stumbled upon this smaller grouping of trees that I'd never found before. So I went into the place, along a small trail (probably an alligator trail) and found this small little pond of water in the middle. The pond was maybe 20' by 20'. Very small. So I start noticeing little baby gators in the pond. There must have been a dozen or so, all less than a foot long. So I was trippin, not really thinking, and stood there for a few minutes trying to get good pictures of the little gators. Never did get a good picture because most of them were hiding under the water. Then I kinda came to my senses. "Hm, maybe I better get out of here.. there might be a momma nearby watching me". So I start walking back down the trail for a few seconds with my bags of shrooms and then all the sudden I hear a loud rustle in the palmetto bushes, i look back and see palmettos moving, then the damn thing started sprinting through the brush full force directly towards me. I never saw the gator with my own eyes because I immediately started running. Eventually I got to a safe distance and the persuit ended. I thought it was a pretty cool experience, a prehistoric lizard creature defending her den..
I've always had great respect for these animals. I can't say that I really fear them too much, but I do understand they are fearful creatures but typically they don't want to eat humans.
Another time I was hunting alone one humid summer night at a field in Sarasota. I was doing pretty good after an hour or two, had a couple pounds of Cubes and about a dozen Copelandia in my bags. There was a canal of water along the edge of the pasture, a canal I had sometimes trudged through to get into the field.. no fear for me really, I've tromped through alligator invested waters before with no fear. But on this paticular night I was finding a few Cubes here and there along this canal, and walking along in the dark, I heard The Largest gator I've ever been near stomp off the edge of the canal and into the water. I did not see it with my own eyes, but it sounded like a dinosaur, no joke it must have been a sixteen footer, it was that loud, it made the ground I was walking on shake a little bit. That one kind of scared me, I got out of the field fast after that.
I've seen a lot of 14-16 footers before, they're no joke, those things will tear into a human if they have the chance. The little gators are more timid and probably wont screw with a human, but they will eat small dogs and smaller easier prey. Overall I'm pretty fearless of anything in the woods of Florida. I've been hunting in fields during the rainy season walking up to my chest in waters that I know there are gators in, during mating season none the less, just to get to another side of the field where more shrooms are to picked. But the large gators are the ones I'm kinda freaked about, they will tear into you if theyre in the mood for it.
Once I met this lady who gave me permission to hunt on her pasture, and before I went looking for shrooms she said hold on let me show you something first. So she went into her house and grabbed a pair of binoculars. She gave them to me and said look over there by that big stand of palms along a decent sized lake. When I looked I saw one massive alligator she said it was a 16 footer and I believed it, then I saw another one that was about a 14 footer, big ones you know. She said her grandkids swim in the lake all the time and the gators never bothered them. I personally thought she was nuts. Anyways, she didnt have any actives in her field so I never returned.
Besides hunting in pastures, I eventually got a job as a land surveyor. With that job I experienced going through the roughest terrain southwest Florida has to offer. Walking through gator infested waters sometimes, seeing gators swimming around in the water we were working in. No fear for the most part, we had a job that needed to be done so what the heck. But one time we had a job along the main road that was next to the entrance to Myakka State Park in Sarasota County. That place has more gators than anywhere else in that area.. we were measuring elevations off along the side of the road with plenty of water, real nasty shit. Another survey company had been out there the year before trying to get elevations in this spot but mysteriously never got the work done so our company was hired to go in and do it. Turns out the first company that went in must have ran into some gator issues that scared them off. My buddy who was a green horn was chose to trudge into the water with the elevation rod for us to get the measurements up top on the road with our instruments. We were safe up there, but my buddy was a dumbass. He ended up in water up to his neck with the rod in his hands and i'm watching all this and said to the party cheif (the guy in charge of our crew) "fuck this, get him out of the water now, its too dangerous, we'll just get a boat to get those shots". Not a second later a gator that must have been at least 8 feet long made himself be known by thrashing the water, and this was only a few feet away from my buddy. I immediately screamed to him "get the fuck out of there Right Now!!". This kid wasnt too bright tho, he started using the rod to poke around in the water seeing if he could find exactly where the gator was at. Then another gator let himself be known by thrashing the surface of the water and then dissappearing under the water. All of this happening within 10-15 feet away from my buddy who's still in the water. I told my party cheif "you are a fucking jerk for not telling him to get out of that water", the cheif was cocky tho, and from Maine, with no experience with Florida surveying. I yell to my friend "get the fuck out of that water now you idiot!" he said back to me with this gung ho green horn attitude "naw man, we gotta get these shots". My party cheif didnt do shit, so I walked down the steep enbankment down to the edge of the sludgey water and told my buddy "hand me that rod right fucking now, you're done. you only get paid ten dollars an hour you dumbass, we have a boat for this kind of work". He complied and trudged his way out of the water with more gators swarming the waters like something Ive never seen. Ha, near the entrance to Myakka State Park, my guess is that those elevations in that area still remain unknown, and they just widened the lanes without knowing the elevations of that area. Cause our company never returned to do the work.. even with a boat the jungle was too dense to get in there.
On another note, if you want to get legal access to cow and horse pastures in Florida, get a job on a surveying crew. My job took me into dozens of pastures and we would spend most of our time goofing off and picking shrooms.
I could go on and on, I guess I already did, but does anyone else have any stories to share about alligators?
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sui
I love you.



Registered: 08/20/04
Posts: 31,853
Loc: Cali, Contra Costa Co.
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Re: Hunting in Alligator Country [Re: GGreatOne234]
#7667643 - 11/22/07 05:45 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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damn, thats kinda scary, but cool too.
-------------------- "There is never a wrong note, bend it." Jimi Hendrix
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2859558484
Growery is Better



Registered: 01/10/06
Posts: 8,752
Last seen: 3 years, 4 months
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Re: Hunting in Alligator Country [Re: sui]
#7667681 - 11/22/07 05:58 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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good stories! i love relaxing and taking my time in the pasture lands during a long hunt. luckily no gators here in central texas. just turkeys and blue herons.
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Dr. uarewotueat
Peyote Farmer


Registered: 09/02/06
Posts: 16,545
Loc: Uk / Philippines
Last seen: 10 years, 6 months
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Re: Hunting in Alligator Country [Re: 2859558484]
#7667685 - 11/22/07 05:59 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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im pleased that there are no deadly creatues where i hunt
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sui
I love you.



Registered: 08/20/04
Posts: 31,853
Loc: Cali, Contra Costa Co.
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Quote:
uarewotueat said: im pleased that there are no deadly creatues where i hunt
I was thinking the same thing. No gators in woodchip beds. Most i gotta worry about is a really bold squirrel
-------------------- "There is never a wrong note, bend it." Jimi Hendrix
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Dr. uarewotueat
Peyote Farmer


Registered: 09/02/06
Posts: 16,545
Loc: Uk / Philippines
Last seen: 10 years, 6 months
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Re: Hunting in Alligator Country [Re: sui]
#7667700 - 11/22/07 06:04 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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no gators in the mountains of northern england either
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Boomers420
Young Hand



Registered: 10/19/06
Posts: 439
Loc: 710 Ashbury, SF, CA
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I have gotten access to all sorts of pastures in the south because of my job. I build and work on Cell towers. Alot of them are in pastures with cattle. It works out gggggreat!
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GGreatOne234
Stranger
Registered: 12/23/99
Posts: 8,946
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Re: Hunting in Alligator Country [Re: Boomers420]
#7668205 - 11/22/07 08:40 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
Boomers420 said: I have gotten access to all sorts of pastures in the south because of my job. I build and work on Cell towers. Alot of them are in pastures with cattle. It works out gggggreat!
Hey good deal man.
Even tho I love surveying pasturelands, a big part of me does not like it. Reason being, the very first sign that a shroomer will see to find out his hunting grounds are going to be decimated are finding wooden survey stakes (laths) in the ground with colored ribbons on the end of them. The sign of wooden laths tell you your field will not be there much longer, due to construction.
I've seen it happen to about a dozen great fields I used to hunt in. They are all gone now, built up with stores and houses and schools ect.
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A3eyedfish
mycophile



Registered: 05/06/99
Posts: 1,454
Loc: Wut some people Call Par...
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Re: Hunting in Alligator Country [Re: GGreatOne234]
#7671893 - 11/23/07 06:45 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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You are right, she does love the camera
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cactu
culture and magic


Registered: 03/06/06
Posts: 3,913
Loc: mexicoelcentrodelconocimi...
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Re: Hunting in Alligator Country [Re: A3eyedfish]
#7675933 - 11/24/07 08:17 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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ha ha good picture that look like a half way pin of macrocybe titans . they do grow huge , ha ha nice to see another picture i bet in a tropical environment aka jungle, in Africa perhaps, ..
 all my gator encounter where not mushrooms related that i remember, and where friendly they used to go away , and was more fishing involved i will love to go fishing sometimes more often.those are memory's from my childhood.
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  cuando una rafaga del pensamiento nos pasa al lado se puede sentir que valio la pena haber vivido, y cuando ese pensamiento se convierte en sueño no paramos de soñar hasta realizarlo
Edited by cactu (11/24/07 08:44 PM)
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MrKite1
Cosmo

Registered: 03/02/04
Posts: 1,384
Loc: AK
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Re: Hunting in Alligator Country [Re: cactu]
#7675972 - 11/24/07 08:27 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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I've had plenty of gator encounters.
Trudging around the rural parts of FL is great fun isn't it?
They really aren't all that dangerous but they certainly demand respect. A friend of mine decided foolishly one day to leap onto one and catch it. He realized only after he was on the gator what a bad idea it was. He sure held on tight and after struggling with it some we gave him a hand. 
The only thing I hate is when the juveniles go after my bait when I'm fishing.
-------------------- When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
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nushroom
Knowledge Seeker



Registered: 11/21/04
Posts: 652
Loc: H-Town Tx
Last seen: 3 years, 6 months
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Re: Hunting in Alligator Country [Re: GGreatOne234]
#7679935 - 11/25/07 09:16 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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I have been fortunate never have had to hunt in fields with big gators. I have seen several around Livingston Texas, and parts of Louisiana. I do believe that Florida has many more gators especially between Naples & Ft Lauderdale along Alligator Alley. I have never seen as many as are there.
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PinheadX
Stranger thanyou



Registered: 04/25/07
Posts: 1,414
Loc: TX Gulf Coast
Last seen: 6 years, 1 month
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Re: Hunting in Alligator Country [Re: nushroom]
#7680314 - 11/26/07 12:33 AM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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we have a few down the road, but I've never had to deal with any.
-------------------- If you want to find psilocybin in species that are not yet known to be psychoactive, you should do chemical tests. That way you won't get sick and die all the time. - Alan Rockefeller Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
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