12-foot gator caught on first day of alligator hunting season by Pensacola charter

Jake Newby | Pensacola News Journal

Show Caption Hide Caption Pensacola alligator hunters capture a gator in Choctawhatchee Bay Captain Tim Land, along with fellow Pensacola gator hunters BJ Etchied and Scott Bradley, work on pulling a 12-foot gator aboard their boat.

Captain Tim Land of Pensacola-based Land & Sea Charters and his team wasted no time taking advantage of Florida's alligator hunting season Wednesday, catching a 12-foot, 360-pound gator in the Choctawhatchee Bay.

Gator season kicked off Wednesday and runs for six weeks through Nov. 1. It only took Land and two of his buddies until 10 p.m. on the first night of the season to nab their first gator.

"Night one is the holy grail," Land said. "If you get week one alligator tags, that's the one everybody wants. Because after this, they've been messed with for a week. So you get on a gator that hasn't been messed with and stressed and pushed, the more chances you have to be successful."

Opening day didn't start so well when Land's brand new truck broke down in Fort Walton Beach on the way to their secret spot in Choctawhatchee. JP Whibbs from Vince Whibbs Automotive Group in Pensacola hooked up Land with a loner vehicle to save the day, but Land and company were well behind schedule by that point.

Still, the getting was good once they got to their spot in the bay, which Land said was east of Tallahassee and has treated him very well over the past nine years.

"We were actually messing with a smaller alligator when we looked up to see this one out in the middle of the river," Land said. "Basically, I snatched the alligator with a Cobia rod. Snatched him, fought him for a little while, and then we threw the weighted treble hook like Willie throws it on 'Swamp People,' so we call it the Willie hook."

Once they pulled the gator up onto their 20-foot SeaArk, they shot him with a cross-bow before using a bang stick to harvest their prize.

The gator is at a local taxidermist and is going to be full-body mounted, Land said. As for the meat, it will be processed soon, and there's a lot of it.

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"The whole alligator was harvested. And that's the misconception, there was 50 people at the (Day Break Marina) yesterday watching us clean it like, 'That's all the meat that's on it, just the tail?'" Land said. "Basically, the entire gator has meat on it, just like every animal. I mean, he probably has 10-pound cheeks. That's 20 pounds of meat just in the cheeks."

The meat will be vacuum sealed for maximum preservation, Land said, and recipe possibilities will be endless.

"You can do grilled alligator, you can fry it, you can make gumbo out of it," he said. "My favorite is in a gumbo. It's slow and low, so the meat's more tender."

As Land said, this first week of alligator season is the best window for hunting, so he and his guys will be right back out on Escambia River this weekend. Land said he has plenty more tags to use this season and he plans on getting his money's worth.

"The state issues these tags for people to fill them. They don't want you to get these tags and not fill them," Land said. "That's why the minimum of an alligator with these tags is so small, 36 inches. I mean, that's a 3-foot alligator. So they want you to fill these tags with anything bigger. So we actually try to harvest gators between that 7-9 foot range. And if we get an opportunity to harvest a bigger alligator, we'll harvest a bigger alligator."

Jake Newby can be reached at jnewby@pnj.com or 850-435-8538.